Brain imaging turned inside out

Neural connectivity in brain tissue is imaged by labeling the extracellular space.

Since the early days of neuroanatomy, researchers had a choice between two opposed labeling strategies to image neurons and their circuits: label all or label few. In a study in Nature Biotechnology1, Michalska et al. advance a third strategy, achieving a comprehensive view of the nervous system — down to the level of synapses — by labeling the extracellular space in fixed tissue. This makes a new avenue of dense reconstructions of neurons in the brain available to many labs that use an ever growing set of enhanced and super-resolution microscopy techniques.

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Fig. 1: Concept and workflow of CATS.

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Authors and Affiliations

Institute of Neuronal Cell Biology, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany

Shahrzad Askari & Thomas Misgeld

German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Munich, Germany

Thomas Misgeld

Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Munich, Germany

Thomas Misgeld

Corresponding author

Correspondence to
Thomas Misgeld.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Askari, S., Misgeld, T. Brain imaging turned inside out.
Nat Biotechnol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-02036-8

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Published: 13 November 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-02036-8

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