New automated tomography imaging process speeds up whole-brain mapping

Serial Two-Photon Tomography (STP tomography), a new technology developed by neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and MIT, significantly speeds up the process of acquiring highly detailed anatomical images of whole brains. Until now, the process has been painstakingly slow and available only to a handful of highly specialized research teams.

STP tomography achieves high-throughput fluorescence imaging of whole mouse brains via robotic integration of the two fundamental steps — tissue sectioning and fluorescence imaging. At 10x magnification of brain tissue samples, the researchers were able to achieve fast imaging at a resolution sufficient to visualize the distribution and morphology of green-fluorescent protein-labeled neurons, including their dendrites and axons, Osten reports.

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Decoding brain activity to identify imagined speech

Neuroscientists at University of California, Berkeley have succeeded in decoding electrical activity in the brain’s temporal lobe — the seat of the auditory system — as a person listens to normal conversation. Brain activity was recorded using implanted electrode array.  Based on this correlation between sound and brain activity, they then were able to predict the words the person had heard solely from the temporal lobe activity.

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Getting the measure of MRI

Oxford University scientists have come up with a new approach for measuring neurophysiology with quantitative images of cerebrovascular parameters are created from a single scan. This new approac improves  functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that produces pictures of changes in brain activity into a full numerical measure of how the brain is working. Doctors may be able to use this new MRI approach to provide a lot more clinically useful information about patients coming in with strokes, brain injuries or a variety of other conditions.

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The Mystery Behind Anesthesia

Mapping how our neural circuits change under the influence of anesthesia could shed light on one of neuroscience's most perplexing riddles: consciousness.

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