Neurotar - in vivo two-photon imaging services

Very peculiar neuroimaging service, that can help you to understand your mouse better.



Seriously speaking this technology can advance our knowledge in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases treatments.

Neuroimaging or brain imaging is the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the nervous system. It is a relatively new discipline within medicine and neuroscience/psychology.

Neuroimaging falls into two broad categories:

• Structural imaging, which deals with the structure of the nervous system and the diagnosis of gross (large scale) intracranial disease (such as tumor), and injury, and
• Functional imaging, which is used to diagnose metabolic diseases and lesions on a finer scale (such as Alzheimer's disease) and also for neurological and cognitive psychology research and building brain-computer interfaces.

Two-photon excitation microscopy is a fluorescence imaging technique that allows imaging of living tissue up to about one millimetre in depth. It differs from traditional fluorescence microscopy, in which the excitation wavelength is shorter than the emission wavelength, as the wavelengths of the two exciting photons are longer than the wavelength of the resulting emitted light. Two-photon excitation microscopy typically uses near-infrared excitation light which can also excite fluorescent dyes. However, for each excitation, two photons of infrared light are absorbed. Using infrared light minimizes scattering in the tissue. Due to the multiphoton absorption, the background signal is strongly suppressed. Both effects lead to an increased penetration depth for these microscopes. Two-photon excitation can be a superior alternative to confocal microscopy due to its deeper tissue penetration, efficient light detection, and reduced phototoxicity.