Fiber optic fluorescence microscopy for functional brain imaging in awake, mobile mice

Fiber-optic based optical imaging is an emerging technique for studying brain activity in live animals. Here, we introduce a novel fluorescence fiber-optic microendoscopy approach to minimal invasively detect neural activities in a live mouse brain . The system uses a flexible endoscopic probe composed of a multi-core coherent fiber-bundle terminated with an approximately 1500-micron working distance objective lens. The fiber-optic neural interface is mounted on a 4-mm2 cranial window enabling visualization of glial calcium transients from the same brain region for weeks. We evaluated the system performance through in vivo imaging of GCaMP3 fluorescence in transgenic headrestrained mice during locomotion.