Newly developed intravital fluorescence imaging in deep brain regions for translational research

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24659648
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cerebral neurosurgery
• Research Institution: Hamamatsu University School of Medicine
• Principal Investigator: YAMAMOTO Seiji 浜松医科大学, メディカルフォトニクス研究センター, 教授 (60144094)
• Research Collaborator: FUKUSHI Yasuko 浜松医科大学, メディカルフォトニクス研究センター, 特任研究員 (50722683)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: バイオイメージング / 脳神経疾患 / 探索的研究 / 共焦点顕微鏡

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Intravital fluorescence imaging is useful to study the brain function. However, the fluorescence imaging, in situ, in the deep brain regions still remains difficult. In the present study we tried to develop the intravital fluorescence imaging technique. We employed an imaging fiber bundle (1.0 mm outer diameter) including 20,000 fibers coupled to the microlens-attached Nipkow-disk scanner (CSU-21, Yokogawa, Japan) equipped with 10x objective lens. This fiber-coupled confocal microscope is capable to observe the confocal images in the deep brain regions. We also developed in situ lipofection method. After placing a ventricular cannula in adult rats, plasmid DNA and Lipofectamine were slowly injected twice a day. 48 hours after the injection, fluorescent protein was diffusely and well observed in the brain. The fiber-coupled confocal microscope and in situ lipofection method can be useful to examine the intravital signaling, and be a powerful tool for translational brain research.

Free Research Field

脳神経外科学