Chinese team develops 1-gram wireless microscope to record mouse brain activity
In short
Chinese scientists have developed a wireless mesoscopic microscope called Airscope that weighs 1 gram, Xinhua reported. It records cortical neural activity in mice at single-cell resolution over a 6-millimetre field of view, covering more than 8,500 neurons in one mouse. The work was published online in Nature on 19 October.
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Chinese scientists have developed what Xinhua called the lightest wireless mesoscopic microscope in the world at present. The device weighs 1 gram and can record the neural activity of a mouse's cerebral cortex at single-cell resolution over a 6-millimetre field of view. It can record more than 8,500 neurons in one mouse at the same time, which Xinhua said is 25 times the figure for existing devices of the same type. The result was published online in Nature on 19 October. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
The microscope, named Airscope, was developed by the team of Dai Qionghai (戴琼海), an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a Tsinghua University professor, together with the team of Dai Pu (戴朴) at the PLA General Hospital. Through integrated design and systematic optimisation, it uses only four aspheric lenses to reach single-cell resolution of 4 to 6 microns across the 6-millimetre field of view. CLS, citing Tsinghua University, described it as a megapixel wireless mesoscopic microscope. [ 1 , 3 , 4 ]
Xinhua said microscopes that can resolve single neurons often require the mouse's head to be fixed under the instrument or tethered by a cable, which makes complex natural behaviour hard to study. Head-mounted miniature microscopes need no tether, but their field of view is usually under 1 millimetre, so they see only a small area of the brain. Covering a larger area of cortex at higher resolution would call for a heavier microscope with higher power consumption. [ 1 ]
Wu Jiamin, an associate professor in Tsinghua's Department of Automation, said Airscope is wireless, light, wide-field and high-throughput. Wu said conventional head-mounted miniature microscopes usually weigh more than 3 grams, which affects how freely mice move. Airscope removes the cable and is lighter, and its 2-megapixel image sensor compresses images on the device so that megapixel-level images can be sent wirelessly. [ 1 , 4 ]
With the device, the team recorded cortical activity while several mice explored a 5-square-metre natural habitat, and tracked mice exploring on their own for a long time in a large maze with 32 endpoints. IT Home also reported a finding that cortical activity changed systematically with the terrain region where a mouse was. [ 1 , 4 ]
Dai Qionghai believes the microscope gives a new tool for understanding the neural basis of intelligence and will push optical brain-computer interfaces toward more precise neural detection, Xinhua reported. Its use is also expected to extend in future from neuroscience to immunology and tumour research, allowing the whole course of a disease to be followed. [ 1 , 4 ]
Why it matters
Xinhua quoted Dai Qionghai as saying the device gives neuroscience a new tool for studying the neural basis of intelligence and will push optical brain-computer interfaces toward more precise neural detection. Its use is also expected to extend to immunology and tumour research, which is a stated prospect and not a result.
Key facts
- The Airscope wireless mesoscopic microscope weighs 1 gram, and Xinhua described it as the lightest of its kind in the world at present. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
- It records mouse cortical neural activity at single-cell resolution over a 6-millimetre field of view, covering more than 8,500 neurons in one mouse at once, which Xinhua said is 25 times the figure for existing devices of the same type. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
- The team of Dai Qionghai (戴琼海) of Tsinghua University worked with the team of Dai Pu (戴朴) of the PLA General Hospital. [ 1 , 3 , 4 ]
- Airscope uses only four aspheric lenses to reach single-cell resolution of 4 to 6 microns. [ 1 , 4 ]
- A 2-megapixel image sensor compresses images on the device, so megapixel-level images can be sent wirelessly. [ 1 , 4 ]
- The result was published online in Nature on 19 October. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
Confirmed by several sources
- The Airscope microscope weighs 1 gram and records mouse cortical activity at single-cell resolution over a 6-millimetre field of view. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]
- Dai Qionghai's team at Tsinghua University and Dai Pu's team at the PLA General Hospital developed Airscope together. [ 1 , 3 , 4 ]
- The work was published in Nature. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]
Still unclear
- Whether Airscope is the lightest wireless mesoscopic microscope in the world. The claim comes from Xinhua and is repeated by CLS and IT Home; the documents give no independent comparison.
- Whether the technique will extend to immunology and tumour research. Xinhua said Dai Qionghai believes the application is expected to extend to these fields in future; no results in them are reported.
- The finding that cortical activity changes systematically with the terrain region a mouse is in. Only IT Home reports this finding.