Microscope Hats Peer Inside Mice Brains

Scientists have made a miniature high-powered microscope that fits on mice without interfering with their actions.
Such a microscope can help biomedical researchers learn more about brain functions
The scientists say the technology within the microscope makes it possible to mass produce them affordably.

Mice are the mainstay of modern biomedical research, but the ability to image their brain cells while they're scampering around is no easy task. Scientists at Stanford University have created a powerful mini-microscope that can fit on a mouse head and stay there without interfering with the mouse's actions.
"It's like a little high tech hat," said Mark Schnitzer, an associate professor of biological sciences and applied physics at Stanford who led the development with Stanford engineering professor Abbas El Gamal. "The mouse can behave very naturally and freely."
Although the individual parts aren't novel by themselves, they do create a tiny little novel system when combined. The microscope is an advancement of an earlier one that Schnitzer's lab designed in 2008. Unlike that one, the latest fluorescence microscope integrates all the optical parts into 1.9 grams so that there are no ancillary components to make it bulky. The technology is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Methods.