Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 18374–18379 (2013)

Microscopy and neurophysiology studies of live animals generally require time-consuming preparation procedures involving complex surgery. Such manual procedures require high dexterity and can introduce unwanted variability into experiments. Now, researchers at Stanford University in the USA have developed a largely automated laser surgical technique that can reduce processing time by a factor of about four for surgery on a single fly (even greater reductions are possible by processing a batch of flies). The researchers use a 193-nm excimer laser to create observation windows with diameters in the range 12–350 μm in the heads of fruit flies. The scientists claim that the surgery does not disrupt the complex behaviours of the flies and that it permits fluorescence brain imaging of alert flies for durations of up to 18 h — over four times longer than that for manual dissection. The laser surgery can also be used for other species, as demonstrated by the creation of microsurgical openings in nematodes, ants and the mouse cranium.