14 DAY TRIAL // Keeping an eye on how progressive brain diseases develop over time is something that doctors have always wanted to do, but never could on account of a lack of relevant technologies. A group of scientists at the Stanford University has now plug this hole with a new monitoring method.
The group developed an approach that can be used to keep an eye on how the tiniest branches of individual neurons behave over months at a time. The technique can also measure the microscopic changes that occur in each of the nerve cells.
According to the researchers, the most important thing about this method is that it allows for studies to be conducted on the live human brain. In addition, it also allows scientists to look within the brain, where other technologies such as light microscopy cannot penetrate.
As a result of this, experts may become able to study such processes as memory formation, or the setting in of dangerous diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's, or other forms of dementia.
The Stanford work builds on a number of previous investigations, which managed to capture fleeting glimpses of neurons in the deep brain. But those methods' primary disadvantage is that they could not operate over prolonged periods of time. They could only create snapshots, scientists say.
The investigators that conducted the study detail their findings in the January 16 online issue of the esteemed journal Nature Medicine. A paper describing the achievement will also be published in the February print edition of the scientific magazine.
“Researchers will now be able to study mouse models in these deep areas in a way that wasn't available before,” explains the senior author of the study, Stanford associate professor of biology and of applied physics Mark Schnitzer.
Traditional microscopy techniques such as light microscopy cannot penetrate deeper than 700 microns (about 1/32 of an inch) into the brain. But with the new method, neurons at all depths can be monitored.
“Imaging is possible over a very long time without damaging the region of interest,” operations manager Juergen Jung says. He explains that tiny glass tubes are placed in the mouse brain in the new approach, and that this prevents infection because the cortex is not exposed.
The new investigation was only made possible by funding secured from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the National Cancer Institute and Mauna Kea Technologies.
“The most aggressive brain tumors arise deep and not superficially,” adds Stanford professor of neurology and neurological sciences, Lawrence Recht, adding that the new technique could help experts detect such diseases in their earliest stages.