An immediate application for optogenetics in combination with microscopy is research on layers of cultivated excitable cells. Monitoring the membrane potential of the activated cells, or cells that have direct or indirect contact with the activated cells, reveals insights into the general biology of action potential generation, axonal signal transmission and synaptic activities. Connectivity of …
Digital microscopy offers clear advantages for a large number of industrial quality inspections, particularly for surface analysis. Fracture analysis and the analysis of inclined or vertical surfaces, or in situ inspection of large components such as turbine rotors are just a few examples of applications where digital microscopes can show their full potential. Here, …
For a long time, it remained a mystery how cells could sense their environment. Scientists knew that hormones such as adrenalin had powerful effects: increasing blood pressure and making the heart beat faster. They suspected that cell surfaces contained some kind of recipient for hormones. But what these receptors actually consisted of and how they …
Nobel Prize 2012 in Chemistry for Studies of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors Read More »
On October 8th 2012, The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be …
Nobel Prize 2012 in Physiology or Medicine for Stem Cell Research Read More »
Honouring Goeppert-Mayer’s prediction of simultaneous two-photon absorption by an atom or molecule reported in the 1930s in her PhD dissertation thesis, we can state that multiphoton excitation (MPE) microscopy, more frequently identified with two-photon excitation (2PE) fluorescence microscopy, is a key microscopy method in many areas from medicine to biology, from biophysics to materials science. …
Developments in Multiphoton Excitation Microscopy Read More »
Phasic activation of the dopamine (DA) midbrain system in response to unexpected reward or novelty is critical for adaptive behavioral strategies. This activation of DA midbrain neurons occurs via a synaptically triggered switch from low-frequency background spiking to transient high-frequency burst firing. We found that, in medial DA neurons of the substantia nigra (SN), activity …
