Detecting action-potential- correlated scattering changes in single neurons

نویسندگان

  • Benedikt Graf
  • Stephen A. Boppart
چکیده

A central goal of neuroscience is to understand how groups of neurons interact to give rise to the myriad functions of the nervous system. This task is extremely difficult in part because of the technical challenge of recording the electrical activity of many neurons simultaneously without disturbing their environment. Although several methods exist, new techniques are in strong demand. One promising approach is based on noninvasively detecting changes in the optical properties of neural tissue that accompany functional activity. Such changes are intrinsic and do not require the use of contrast-enhancing dyes. However, the effects are small and often accompanied by high levels of noise. Consequently, it takes optical-imaging techniques with high sensitivity to sense them. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a biomedical-imaging modality that measures depth-resolved scattering of tissue using ‘coherence-gated’ detection. OCT can detect functional activity in neural tissue such as cortex1 and retina2 by measuring time-dependent changes in intrinsic scattering. Such studies have thus far focused on bulk neural tissue. But because neurons function as the fundamental unit of the nervous system, investigations would benefit from also being able to detect functional activity in individual neurons. Toward this goal, we have recently demonstrated the use of optical coherence microscopy (OCM) to measure functionally correlated scattering changes in single neurons.3 OCM combines the high spatial resolution of confocal microscopy with the interferometric detection of OCT.4 OCM images are similar to those produced by confocal-reflectance microscopy, but the technique features improved sensitivity and penetration depth in highly scattering tissue. OCM is capable Figure 1. Experimental setup and results for correlating scattering intensity and membrane voltage in a single neuron during an induced action potential. (a) OCM image of a ‘bag-cell’ neuron from Aplysia californica. (b) Schematic of experimental setup showing a neuron in culture impaled with a glass pipette microelectrode for stimulation and recording of the membrane voltage. Optical backscattering of the focused laser beam is measured by OCM. (c) Motion-mode OCM showing depth-resolved scattering intensity from the neuron as a function of time. The arrow points to an increase in scattering intensity from the neuron resulting from the action potential. (d) Membrane voltage (blue) and scattering intensity (green) from the neuron surface. Depth corresponding to the neuron surface is indicated by the blue bar in (c). a.u.: Arbitrary units. (Adapted from Reference 3.)

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تاریخ انتشار 2009