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| Poster #Olfactory Coding POLAK YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARDEE: High-Speed Volumetric Imaging of the Olfactory System: from Periphery to Cortex |
| Lu Xu1, Wenze Li1, Eliza C. B. Jeager2, Nicholas J. Chua2, Stuart J. Firestein2, Elizabeth M. C. Hillman1,2, Maria A. Tosches2 1St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States 2Columbia University, New York, NY, United States |
Swept Confocally-Aligned Planar Excitation (SCAPE) microscopy is a light-sheet-based volumetric imaging technique that enables high-speed, high-resolution 3D imaging of biological samples. Light-sheet illumination provides reduced photodamage compared to confocal microscopy, while SCAPE’s unique single-objective design significantly reduces the spatial constraints of light-sheet microscopy, enabling imaging of diverse intact and in-vivo samples. We have leveraged these benefits of SCAPE microscopy, combined with fluorescent calcium indicators to study the olfactory system across species. First, we recorded activity from tens of thousands of olfactory sensory neurons simultaneously in the mouse olfactory epithelium in an intact in vitro preparation, revealing a receptor-driven modulation effect that shapes coding of mixtures of odors at the peripheral level. More recently, we have leveraged SCAPE microscopy to capture large-scale, odor-evoked neuronal activity in the intact brains of behaving salamanders, while simultaneously resolving the 3D morphology of individual neurons. Together with our custom analysis pipelines, SCAPE microscopy provides a powerful tool for studying olfactory coding across peripheral and central circuits in real time and at large scale. This approach holds broad potential for investigating other dynamic biological processes in diverse samples. |