Wu, Y. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 17708–17713 (2011).

Caenorhabditis elegans is an ideal model organism for studying neural development, but current imaging methods are not well suited for such studies, owing to the rapid movements of worm embryos. Wu et al. describe inverted selective plane illumination microscopy (iSPIM), which allowed them to perform high-speed, noninvasive, volumetric imaging of C. elegans neural development. iSPIM can be performed by simply adding a selective plane illumination module to a conventional inverted microscope.