Richard Mooney, the George Barth Geller Professor of Neurobiology, was recently awarded a $150,000 miniature microscope by a California startup, Inscopix Inc, which makes the device. Device will allow real-time imaging of active neurons.
The microscope weighs only two grams but can be used to visualize thousands of neurons in a living animal. Mooney said he intends to use the new equipment to understand how genetic mutations disrupt the activity of neural populations that control learned motor skills.