Whole-brain imaging of mice during behavior

In a study published in Neuron, researchers have demonstrated how functional ultrasound imaging can yield high-resolution, unbiased, brain-wide activity maps of behaving mice. These can lead to a brain-wide understanding of how brain activity relates to specific behavior - in healthy mice and in mouse models of neurologic or psychiatric diseases. Large numbers of brain regions are active during behaviors and there is a need to develop high-resolution, brain-wide activity maps, which identify brain regions involved in specific behaviors. However, current whole-brain functional imaging technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, are limited in resolution and difficult to apply to awake and behaving mice. An international team of scientists led by Emilie Macé and Botond Roska, from the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel, the FMI, and the Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders, has developed the emerging technology of high-resolution functional ultrasound imaging to record activity in the whole brain of mice during behavior. The team was particularly interested in the brain regions involved in the optokinetic reflex. Studying the optokinetic reflex - The optokinetic reflex stabilizes images drifting on the retina both horizontally and vertically by moving the eye in the direction of image drift - we all experienced that our eyes reflexively move to follow the passing landscape as we look out of a train window.