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Smart microscopes spot fleeting biology

Automated microscopes that adapt to each sample’s quirks can capture elusive biological phenomena at high resolution.
  1. Jyoti Madhusoodanan

    1. Jyoti Madhusoodanan is a science writer in Portland, Oregon.

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A man builds a microscope in a room full of wires.

Physicist Robert Prevedel builds microscopes that can quickly measure neuron activity while adapting to movements in the live mouse brain. Credit: EMBL

A mouse’s heart beats roughly 600 times each minute. With every beat, blood pumping through vessels jiggles the brain and other organs. That motion doesn’t trouble the mouse, but it does pose a challenge for physicist Robert Prevedel.

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Nature 614, 378-380 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00336-2

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 07 February 2023: An earlier version of this article gave the wrong caption for the image of individual cell tracks in a developing mouse embryo.

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