Welcome to the Research Group Neurophotonics
The human brain is an extremely complex organ. Understanding its structure and function is of central interest to scientists across a wide range of disciplines. Optical microscopy techniques, which make the invisible visible, are particularly helpful.
We are a highly interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers aiming to develop better tools for observing the brain at work and understanding how individual nerve cells – known as neurons – are interconnected. On the technological side, we aim to turn the latest innovations in photonics into microscopy techniques. From a biological perspective, we investigate how small aquatic organisms, such as fish larvae, orient themselves in three-dimensional space. How does a tiny zebrafish larva know how far away it is from the water’s surface? How is this spatial information interpreted in the fish’s brain, and how does its spatial perception change over the course of development? Using a combination of nanophotonics, optical engineering, behavioral tracking and modeling, and neural activity recordings, we aim to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how fish adapt to complex 3D environments – while developing widely applicable imaging techniques for biology and medicine.
Research Overview
The “Neurophotonics” research group aims to bridge two fields: photonics and systems neuroscience. In photonics, new imaging sensors, devices, and imaging techniques are being developed, while systems neuroscience investigates how neural circuits form and process information.
One of the most fascinating questions in systems neuroscience relates to how animals perceive space and orient themselves relative to landmarks. We plan to use two small vertebrate model organisms – the larval zebrafish Danio rerio and the adult fish Danionella cerebrum – to study orientation behaviors in aquatic 3D environments. We are particularly interested in developing rapid 3D behavior tracking methods as well as lightweight tracking microscopes to measure neuronal activity in freely moving aquatic animals. To relate activity recordings using calcium imaging to neuronal morphology, we also develop advanced light-sheet modalities for imaging large cleared tissue samples.
Our projects
- mesoSPIM initiative: a global open-hardware project providing the bioimaging community with highly capable light-sheet microscopes for imaging cleared tissue
- Schmidt objective: a novel reflective multi-immersion microscope objective design inspired both by the eye of scallops and how astronomers build telescopes
- KALEIDOSCOPE: an ERC-funded project to create sharable technologies for imaging brain activity in small freely moving animals such as larval zebrafish
Contact
Research Group Fabian Voigt
Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin
Kussmaulallee 2
91054 Erlangen, Germany
Research team leader Dr. Fabian Voigt
(© Rick Friedman)
“Seeing is believing and thus, optical imaging techniques are extremely useful to study brain structure and function.”
