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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2023.10.23.563526

Super-Resolution Imaging of Fast Morphological Dynamics of Neurons in Behaving Animals

Zhang, Y.·Bai, L.·Wang, X.·Zhao, Y.·Zhang, T.·Ye, L.·Du, X.·Zhang, Z.·Du, J.·Wang, K.
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Abstract

Neurons are best studied in their native working states in which their functional and morphological dynamics support animals natural behaviors. Super-resolution microscopy can potentially reveal these dynamics in much higher details but has been challenging in behaving animals due to severe motion artifacts. Here, we report multiplexed line-scanning structured illumination microscopy, which could tolerate motions of up to 50 m/s while achieving 150 and 100 nm lateral resolutions in its linear and nonlinear forms respectively over large fields-of-view. We continuously imaged the dynamics of spinules in dendritic spines and axonal boutons volumetrically over thousands of frames and tens of minutes in mouse brains during sleep-wake cycles. Super-resolution imaging of axonal boutons revealed their prevalent spinule dynamics on a scale of seconds. Simultaneous two-color imaging further enabled analyses of the correlation between the spatial distributions of diverse PSD-95 clusters and the structural dynamics of dendrites in the brains of awake mice.

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Zhang, Y., Bai, L., Wang, X., Zhao, Y., Zhang, T., Ye, L., Du, X., Zhang, Z., Du, J., Wang, K.. 2023-10-24. Super-Resolution Imaging of Fast Morphological Dynamics of Neurons in Behaving Animals. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.23.563526

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