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Direct observation of living brains is difficult and requires invasive and dangerous surgery to cut skin and bones. Now scientists can peer through the skulls using powerful technology borrowed from the field of astronomy.
Porous and often inconsistent structures like bones tend to scatter light in unpredictable ways, frustrating efforts to “see” them through medical technology.
However, scientists have now discovered a new method to create a clear image of what is behind the skull from infrared light scattered by a laser.
“Our microscope allows us to study fine internal structures deep within living tissue that cannot be resolved by any other means,” Korea University physicists Seokchan Yoon and Hojun Lee said.
A prior art called three-photon microscopy could achieve limited success in capturing images of neutrons in the brain of mice, but anything larger than a mouse’s skull required surgery.
This method also requires longer wavelengths and a specialized gel to work and has limited penetration, with a significant risk of inflicting at least some damage to the subject.
However, by combining this existing technique with methods typically deployed in ground-based astronomy, Yoon and his team created high-resolution images of the neural networks of a mouse behind its skull.
The astronomical approach, known as adaptive computational optics, typically mitigates the distortion of optical astronomy readings on the ground, but it has proven invaluable for seeing behind the skull.
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The new imaging technology, known as Laser Scanning Reflection Matrix Microscopy (LS-RMM), is so called because it derives a complete data set from the input-output response of scattered laser light.
In other words, some photons from the laser can pass through the skull while others are scattered in a variety of different directions. The new process takes into account data derived from all photons to build a more complete picture of the brain behind the bone wall, correcting for distortions.
“This will help us greatly in the early diagnosis of the disease and will accelerate research in neuroscience”, say the researchers.
For the moment, a major drawback of the method is the volume of computing power required to make sense of the reflection matrix. But the technique is still in its infancy and advances in computing power continue steadily.
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