Review of mesoscopic optical tomography for depth-resolved imaging of hemodynamic changes and neural activities

Understanding the functional wiring of neural circuits and their patterns of activation following sensory stimulations is a fundamental task in the field of neuroscience. Furthermore, charting the activity patterns is undoubtedly important to elucidate how neural networks operate in the living brain. However, optical imaging must overcome the effects of light scattering in the tissue, which limit the light penetration depth and affect both the imaging quantitation and sensitivity. Laminar optical tomography (LOT) is a three-dimensional (3-D) in-vivo optical imaging technique that can be used for functional imaging. LOT can achieve both a resolution of 100 to [Formula: see text] and a penetration depth of 2 to 3 mm based either on absorption or fluorescence contrast, as well as large field-of-view and high acquisition speed. These advantages make LOT suitable for 3-D depth-resolved functional imaging of the neural functions in the brain and spinal cords. We review the basic principles and instrumentations of representative LOT systems, followed by recent applications of LOT on 3-D imaging of neural activities in the rat forepaw stimulation model and mouse whisker-barrel system.