Instrumentation

Our lab designs and builds all of its own imaging systems. This allows us to create highly customized configurations allowing us to explore in-vivo phenomena using light. This page provides details of our system, and in the future will include downloads of 'kit parts lists' and control software for implementation of these systems.

The systems described below include:

1) Laminar Optical Tomography

2) High-speed multispectral camera imaging (coming soon)

3) In-vivo two-photon microscope

Laminar Optical Tomography:

Figure 1. Laminar Optical Tomography is capable of 3D imaging of absorption at three wavelengths and fluorescence simultaneously at frame rates of over 100Hz. For more information see Burgess et al 2008 and Yuan et al 2009.

We have applied LOT to a range of living tissues including the brain, heart and skin. For more information on applications of LOT see Hillman et al 2007 and Hillman et al 2007b and Hillman and Burgess 2009.

Figure 2. Photograph and technical layout of our current laminar optical tomography system from Yuan et al 2009..

High-speed Multispectral Camera Imaging:

Camera-based spectroscopic optical imaging systems can map functional parameters of living systems by monitoring changes in absorption and/or fluorescence contrast. These systems have been used to study biological questions ranging from cortical hemodynamics to more recent applications in dynamic molecular imaging of pharmacokinetics. We are currently developing low-cost, portable, CCD-camera based spectroscopic optical imaging systems which are not hindered by the image acquisition rate limits which have typically constrained spectroscopic imaging systems. Our new high-speed systems are capable of imaging simultaneously both absorption and fluorescence contrast at framerates exceeding 100 frames per second and greater than 1 megapixel spatial resolution. With appropriate optics, our systems can separately image living systems ranging in size from small animals to single cells. <system diagrams and software coming soon!>

In-vivo two-photon microscope

Our two-photon microscope design is optimized for in-vivo imaging. Its three emission channels and flexible fliter configuration allow imaging of almost any source of contrast including second harmonic generation, intrinsic fluorescence, fluorescent proteins, active dyes and conventional fluorescent stains. 3 or more sources of contrast can be distinguished and imaged in paralell by the system at up to 30 frames per second, to depths exceeding 500 microns in living brain. The system is fully automated with all stages and instrument settings controllable via a Matlab graphical user interface (GUI). This software also controls the system 's Spectra Physics MaiTai Ti:Sapphire laser, which allows synchronous wavelength scanning and imaging allowing hyperspectral microscopy (for more details see here).

Figure 3. Our in-vivo two-photon microscopy system was designed to allow high-speed imaging of 3 or more sources of contrast in living tissue. The system can also perform hyperspectral microscopy. For more information see Radosevich et al 2008, Hillman 2007 and Bouchard et al 2006. Figure 4. 3D images of vasculature (dextran conjugated fluorescein) and astrocytes (SR101-stained) in-vivo. Each microscope channel can be anaylsed independently, or together. See here for more information on our brain imaging projects.