Look, A Brainbow!: The Art of Neuroscience

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch cloth merchant in the 1660s, was the first to observe bacteria. He was inventing higher resolution magnifying lenses to better see the weave of the cloth. Just happened to look at some pond water, thank you very much. Over the long history of scientific discovery, new innovations in technology have continually expanded our capacity to sense (see, hear, touch, smell, taste) the world through external instruments. Today it’s the Hubble Telescope, electron microscopes, the 17 mile long Large Hadron Collider (LHC) lying beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator intended to collide opposing particle beams. And in the field of neuroscience, it’s Magnetic Resonating Imagery (MRI).

Expanding perception correlates strongly with increased understanding of reality. At the same time, perhaps unexpectedly, we have created – or discovered -- images of astounding beauty. Note this is equally true when we learn to refocus our brains and expand our internal observation of the mental field of awareness. Thus far no one seems to have figured out how to capture the experiential beauty of expanded awareness in photographic images. Words fall far short, but we see some correlation evidenced in the nature and actions of such people.

This photomicrograph is the work of a team of researchers under Dr. Jean Livet. The aim of their research is to understand how neuronal circuits of the brain are organized, how they develop and how they can be affected in diseases. The imaging process they developed is called “Brainbow”. This allows them to visualize neuronal circuits by creating a multicolor labeling of the brain. In this case, it is a map of neural networks in mice (axons and dendrites).

In Brainbow transgenic mice, nerve cells randomly express fluorescent proteins of different colors. Combinations of these proteins label neurons with multiple distinct hues, as seen here in the hippocampus (confocal microscopy, dentate gyrus).

 
Source: http://www.fondave.org/-Team-of-J-Livet-.html (Dr. Jean Livet (CR1, Inserm), E-mail: jean.livet@inserm.fr, Phone: + 33 1 53 46 25 18 )

SMALL WORLD

Recognizing the art in science, Nikon established the Nikon International Small World Competition, dedicated to furthering creativity and excellence in photomicrography. “Combining microscopy and photography, a photomicrographer is able to capture an image of the world that the naked eye cannot see.” In 2008, Dr. Livet won an Honorable Mention for this photomicorgraph.

Honorable Mention - Dr. Jean Livet (Institut de la Vision - INSERM U592 and UPMC - Paris, France; Specimen: “Brainbow” mouse brain stem with auditory pathway axons (40x); Technique: Confocal

Nikon’s Small World Galleries can be found at: http://www.nikonsmallworld.com/gallery