From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jun 10 2003 - 10:36:01 MDT
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030609/030609-2.html
Lasers take 3D brain scans
Infrared light probes tissue a slice at a time.
10 June 2003 GEOFF BRUMFIEL
Lasers turn a sample from brains to bits.
...
The system could replace the current methods of imaging soft
tissue, says one of its developers Jeff Squier, a physicist at
the Colorado School of Mines. Typically, samples are frozen,
sliced and dyed, before being examined under the microscope. This
process can distort key details.
Squier's team places a fresh, dice-sized sample of rat brain
tissue in front of a high-powered laser. The laser emits short,
bright pulses of infrared light that stimulate fluorescent dyes
that are either genetically engineered or manually brushed into
the sample. The dye then emits light at a different wavelength
that is picked up by detectors around the tissue.
The laser sweeps through the sample, taking a digitized image of
its surface. Then a second laser burns away scanned tissue and
the process begins anew. When the whole sample has been scanned,
all that remains is a digital, three-dimensional picture of the
chunk of rat brain. "The sample goes from brains to bits," he
says.
Squier presented the first results from the device at last week's
Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in Baltimore, Maryland.
He developed it in collaboration with researchers at the
University of California, San Diego and at Science Applications
International Corporation in Arlington, Virginia.
Ultimately, laser scanning could automatically create digital
images in just hours without lab technicians having to
painstakingly freeze, slice, stain and set samples. A similar
system is also showing promise in the imaging of rat embryos.
Traditional techniques can't handle such soft tissue.
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