Redesigned Scale Objective Lens from Carl Zeiss for Brain Research
Imaging to depth of 5.6 mm in brain tissue now possible
Press Release
November 28, 2011
JENA/Germany, 28.11.2011.
The completely redesigned plan-apochromatic 20x/1.0 VIS-IR objective lens from Carl Zeiss now makes it possible
to acquire 3D images of nerve cells down to depths of 5.6 mm in intact tissue using a confocal laser scanning or
multiphoton microscope, without having to section the brain. This permits the three-dimensional visualization of
the branches of individual nerve cells and the imaging of their connections. In untreated tissue, the penetration
depth now achievable is five to ten times more than that of a multiphoton microscope featuring traditional optics.
Using the microscope to visualize and track nerve cells deep into the brain is an important step in the decoding
of the brain circuitry. The new objective lens from Carl Zeiss now brings this goal considerably closer to realization.
Carl Zeiss has designed the plan-apochromatic 20x/1.0 VIS-IR objective lens for the clearing method known as Scale developed by
Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan. A special water-based reagent solution transforms the sheath
substance of the nerve cells
into a transparent matrix without impairing the signals from fluorescent marker and tracer substances.
“I am very impressed by the new possibilities,” says Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki, whose results have been published in Nature Neuroscience
and provoked broad interest in the neurosciences. In one of the most important research projects in the field of brain research,
the Connectome project, the objective lens will help scientists obtain a better understanding of brain connectivity.
A prototype of the objective lens was presented at Neuroscience 2011 in Washington D.C. After concluding system tests,
it will then become available for ZEISS confocal and multiphoton microscopes in 2012.
In the picture:
Maximum intensity projection of an image stack through the intact brain of a 7 week old transgenic mouse taken
on a ZEISS LSM 780 NLO Multiphotron microscope and the new objective lens. Various neuronal populations are visualized
up to 5.6 mm deep in the brain.
Image courtesy of Hiroshi Hama, Fumijoshi Ishidate, Atsushi Miyawaki, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako, Japan
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