Nat Methods: HKU successfully develops high-speed microscope to provide research clues for brain disease

The University of Hong Kong announced on the 9th that its research team has successfully developed an ultra-high-speed microscope that can effectively capture brain wave signals and provide clues for the study of brain diseases such as brain degenerationHong Kong University, in collaboration with a team at the University of California, Berkeley, developed a "dual photonic fluorescence microscope" that captures the transmission of electrical signals and chemicals between neuronsThe team successfully recorded electrical impulses generated by neurons in the brain of a live mouse that flashed in millisecondsthe microscope uses ultra-high-speed laser scanning technology developed by the HKU team to generate a row of laser pulses with a pair of parallel mirrors, at least 1,000 times faster than current laser scanning technologyIn the experiment, the researchers used a high-speed microscope to project a scanning laser into the brains of mice, performing two-dimensional scans of the cerebral cortex of mice 1,000 to 3,000 times per secondXie Jianwen, associate professor of electrical and electronic engineering and director of biomedical engineering at, led the research team, said there are different types of techniques that can capture brain wave signals, including implanting electrodes into the brain to directly measure the brain voltage, but are traumatic, while magnetic resonance and traditional optical microscopes are slowerThe advantage of HKU's new technology is that it is less traumatic and can pinpoint individual neurons to track their excitation paths in millisecondsXie Jianwen,of the, said the new technology could detect changes in the activity of a single neuron in the living brain in millisecondsThe team hopes to further advance technology over the next 1 to 2 years, exploring deeper brain structures and gaining a better understanding of brain functionthe findings were published in the academic journal Nature Methods