Fluorescent Molecular Tools for Neuroscience Research

Dear Colleagues,

The brain, the seat of biological intelligence, is a highly complex network. The human brain, for example, consists of billions of interconnected neurons with complex structures and diverse functions. To understand the brain, large-scale brain projects have been launched worldwide in the last decade. Considerable efforts have been devoted to modern three-dimensional (3D) imaging techniques to study the brain’s spatial information in the nervous system, such as neuroanatomy, mesoscale connectome, vasculature, gene expression, and so on. The brain-wide analysis of the entire neural system is essential for understanding the brain in basic and clinical neuroscience.

In addition to traditional brain medical imaging techniques, fluorescence imaging platforms (e.g., co-focal scanning fluorescence microscope, two-photon fluorescence microscope, fluorescence lifetime microscope, light sheet fluorescence imaging microscope) are powerful tools for the high-speed imaging and analysis of large-volume samples at the cellular level in 3D. One challenge is the need for efficient and controllable histochemical methods to label neural structures uniformly over a large volume of the brain tissue. The combination of fluorescent labeling, tissue clearing and 3D imaging provides rich opportunities for brain-wide analysis at the mesoscale resolution.

This Special Issue aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the latest fluorescent molecular tools for the study of biological structures and functional networks. Both original research and reviews on this topic are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Sheng Xie
Guest Editor

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