Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Imaging Biological Samples with Optical Microscopy

Imaging Biological Samples with Optical Microscopy

Optical microscopy uses optic principles to provide detailed images of samples. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek designed the first compound optical microscope in the 17th century to visualize blood cells, bacteria, and yeast cells. In 1830, Joseph Jackson Lister created an essentially modern light microscope. The 20th century saw the development of microscopes with enhanced magnification and resolution.
In optical microscopy, the specimen to be viewed is placed on a glass slide and clipped on the stage...

Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy

Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy

Confocal microscopy is an advanced microscopic technique. The prime advantage of the confocal microscope over other microscopy techniques is its ability to block the out-of-focus light from the illuminated samples using pinholes. It is widely used with fluorescence optics to obtain high-resolution, sharp contrast images. Unlike optical microscopes, confocal microscopes use a focused beam of light laser to scan the entire sample surface at different z-planes. These microscopes are, therefore,...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Latent learning drives sleep-dependent plasticity in distinct CA1 subpopulations.

Cell reports·2024

Same author

SHIELD: Skull-shaped hemispheric implants enabling large-scale electrophysiology datasets in the mouse brain.

Neuron·2024

Same author

Self-organization of songbird neural sequences during social isolation.

eLife·2023

Same author

SyConn2: dense synaptic connectivity inference for volume electron microscopy.

Nature methods·2022

Same author

RNA timestamps identify the age of single molecules in RNA sequencing.

Nature biotechnology·2020

Same author

An avian cortical circuit for chunking tutor song syllables into simple vocal-motor units.

Nature communications·2020

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 6, 2025

A Guide to Build a Highly Inclined Swept Tile Microscope for Extended Field-of-view Single-molecule Imaging

A Guide to Build a Highly Inclined Swept Tile Microscope for Extended Field-of-view Single-molecule Imaging

Published on: April 8, 2019

An optical design enabling lightweight and large field-of-view head-mounted microscopes.

Joseph R Scherrer¹, Galen F Lynch¹, Jie J Zhang¹

¹Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

|March 17, 2023

Summary

Researchers developed a novel fluorescence microscope light path for imaging thousands of neurons in mice and hundreds in songbirds during free behavior. This innovation enables lighter, wider field-of-view head-mounted microscopes for advanced neuroscience research.

More Related Videos

Construction of a High Resolution Microscope with Conventional and Holographic Optical Trapping Capabilities

Construction of a High Resolution Microscope with Conventional and Holographic Optical Trapping Capabilities

Published on: April 22, 2013

Compact Lens-less Digital Holographic Microscope for MEMS Inspection and Characterization

Compact Lens-less Digital Holographic Microscope for MEMS Inspection and Characterization

Published on: July 5, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Aug 6, 2025

A Guide to Build a Highly Inclined Swept Tile Microscope for Extended Field-of-view Single-molecule Imaging

A Guide to Build a Highly Inclined Swept Tile Microscope for Extended Field-of-view Single-molecule Imaging

Published on: April 8, 2019

Construction of a High Resolution Microscope with Conventional and Holographic Optical Trapping Capabilities

Construction of a High Resolution Microscope with Conventional and Holographic Optical Trapping Capabilities

Published on: April 22, 2013

Compact Lens-less Digital Holographic Microscope for MEMS Inspection and Characterization

Compact Lens-less Digital Holographic Microscope for MEMS Inspection and Characterization

Published on: July 5, 2016

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Microscopy
Optical Engineering

Background:

Traditional illumination optics in fluorescence microscopy limit head-mounted systems.
Existing head-mounted microscopes face constraints in weight and field of view (FOV).

Purpose of the Study:

To present a new fluorescence microscope light path design.
To enable in vivo imaging of neuronal activity in freely behaving animals with reduced microscope size and weight.
To create head-mounted microscopes with enhanced FOV and reduced weight.

Main Methods:

Developed a novel light path eliminating traditional illumination optics.
Designed two head-mounted microscope prototypes based on the new light path.
Optimized one microscope for a large FOV (~4 mm) and another for minimal weight (1.0 g).

Main Results:

The new light path allows for head-mounted microscopes with unprecedentedly large FOV and low weight.
Demonstrated imaging of thousands of neurons in mice and hundreds in juvenile songbirds during free behavior.
Achieved a 1.4 g microscope with a ~4 mm FOV and a 1.0 g microscope with a 1.0 mm FOV.

Conclusions:

The presented fluorescence microscope light path significantly advances capabilities for in vivo neural imaging.
The developed head-mounted microscopes offer improved performance for studying brain activity in freely moving subjects.
This technology opens new avenues for high-resolution neural circuit analysis in neuroscience research.