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Updated: Jan 25, 2026

Isolation and RNA Extraction of Neurons, Macrophages and Microglia from Larval Zebrafish Brains
Published on: April 27, 2018
All-optical imaging and manipulation of whole-brain neuronal activities in behaving larval zebrafish
Zhen-Fei Jiao1,2, Chun-Feng Shang3,2,4, Yu-Fan Wang3,5,2
1Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, MoE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, Collaborative Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering Sciences, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China.
Abstract:
All-optical interrogation of population neuron activity is a promising approach to deciphering the neural circuit mechanisms supporting brain functions. However, this interrogation is currently limited to local brain areas. Here, we incorporate patterned photo-stimulation into light-sheet microscopy, allowing simultaneous targeted optogenetic manipulation and brain-wide monitoring of the neuronal activities of head-restrained behaving larval zebrafish. Using this system, we photo-stimulate arbitrarily selected neurons (regions as small as ~10-20 neurons in 3D) in zebrafish larvae with pan-neuronal expression of a spectrally separated calcium indicator, GCaMP6f, and an activity actuator, ChrimsonR, and observe downstream neural circuit activation and behavior generation. This approach allows us to dissect the causal role of neural circuits in brain functions and behavior generation.
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