A portable laser photostimulation and imaging microscope

We describe a compact microscope that uses a spatial light modulator (SLM) to control the excitation laser light. The flexibility of SLMs, which can mimic virtually any optical transfer function, enables the experimenter to create, in software, arbitrary spatio-temporal light patterns, including foc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of neural engineering Vol. 7; no. 4; p. 045001
Main Authors Nikolenko, Volodymyr, Peterka, Darcy S, Yuste, Rafael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England IOP Publishing 01.08.2010
Subjects
Animals
Calcium Signaling - physiology
Equipment Design
Equipment Failure Analysis
Mice
Microscopy, Confocal - instrumentation
Microscopy, Fluorescence - instrumentation
Miniaturization
Neocortex - cytology
Neocortex - physiology
Photic Stimulation - instrumentation
Reproducibility of Results
Sensitivity and Specificity
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted - instrumentation
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Summary:We describe a compact microscope that uses a spatial light modulator (SLM) to control the excitation laser light. The flexibility of SLMs, which can mimic virtually any optical transfer function, enables the experimenter to create, in software, arbitrary spatio-temporal light patterns, including focusing and beam scanning, simply by calculating the appropriate phase mask. Our prototype, a scan-less device with no moving parts, can be used for laser imaging or photostimulation, supplanting the need for an elaborate optical setup. As a proof of principle, we generate complex excitation patterns on fluorescent samples and also perform functional imaging of neuronal activity in living brain slices.
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ISSN:1741-2552
1741-2560
1741-2552
DOI:10.1088/1741-2560/7/4/045001