Light-field microscopy for fast volumetric brain imaging.

Recording neural activities over large populations is critical for a better understanding of the functional mechanisms of animal brains. Traditional optical imaging technologies for in vivo neural activity recording are usually limited in throughput and cannot cover a large imaging volume at high speed. Light-field microscopy features a highly parallelized imaging collection mechanism and can simultaneously record optical signals from different depths. Therefore, it can potentially increase the imaging throughput substantially. Furthermore, its unique instantaneous volumetric imaging capability enables the capture of highly dynamic processes, such as recording whole-animal neural activities in freely moving Caenorhabditis elegans and whole-brain neural activity in freely swimming larval zebrafish during prey capture. Here, we summarize the principles of and considerations in the practical implementation of light-field microscopy as currently applied in biological imaging experiments. We also discuss the strategies that light-field microscopy can employ when imaging thick tissues in the presence of scattering and background interference. Finally, we present a few examples of applying light-field microscopy in neuroscientific studies in several important animal models.