MRI-guided robotic arm drives optogenetic fMRI with concurrent Ca 2+ recording

Optical fiber-mediated optogenetic activation and neuronal Ca recording in combination with fMRI provide a multi-modal fMRI platform. Here, we developed an MRI-guided robotic arm (MgRA) as a flexible positioning system with high precision to real-time assist optical fiber brain intervention for mult...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 2536
Main Authors Chen, Yi, Pais-Roldan, Patricia, Chen, Xuming, Frosz, Michael H, Yu, Xin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England 10.06.2019
Subjects
Animals
Calcium - metabolism
Channelrhodopsins
Functional Neuroimaging - instrumentation
Functional Neuroimaging - methods
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - instrumentation
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Optical Fibers
Optogenetics - instrumentation
Optogenetics - methods
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Robotic Surgical Procedures - instrumentation
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Summary:Optical fiber-mediated optogenetic activation and neuronal Ca recording in combination with fMRI provide a multi-modal fMRI platform. Here, we developed an MRI-guided robotic arm (MgRA) as a flexible positioning system with high precision to real-time assist optical fiber brain intervention for multi-modal animal fMRI. Besides the ex vivo precision evaluation, we present the highly reliable brain activity patterns in the projected basal forebrain regions upon MgRA-driven optogenetic stimulation in the lateral hypothalamus. Also, we show the step-wise optical fiber targeting thalamic nuclei and map the region-specific functional connectivity with whole-brain fMRI accompanied by simultaneous calcium recordings to specify its circuit-specificity. The MgRA also guides the real-time microinjection to specific deep brain nuclei, which is demonstrated by an Mn-enhanced MRI method. The MgRA represents a clear advantage over the standard stereotaxic-based fiber implantation and opens a broad avenue to investigate the circuit-specific functional brain mapping with the multi-modal fMRI platform.
ISSN:2041-1723