Ultrafast Imaging and Electronics for Modern Applications: Voltage and Fluorescent Lifetime Imaging

Calcium imaging has become the standard way to record cellular activity with multiphoton microscopy, but it is slow compared to the rate at which neurons signal electrically. Calcium events can last hundreds of milliseconds, while action potentials last only a few milliseconds and can occur at frequencies difficult to resolve with calcium indicators such as GCaMP.

Modern voltage indicators have now matured to the point where multiphoton imaging of electrical events in vivo is possible, provided they are paired with high-speed, high sensitivity optics and electronics.

In this talk, Mann will share how combining fast scanning with high-speed acquisition electronics that process photon signals in real time meets these demands. He will also briefly introduce fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), which uses the same fast electronics to measure nanosecond photon arrival times and reveal molecular interactions and metabolic state.

Both techniques demonstrate how advances in electronics, alongside lasers and optics, are expanding what multiphoton imaging can measure.

About the presenter
Kevin Mann, Ph.D., received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, under the guidance of Kristin Scott, Ph.D., where he studied fundamental behaviors in Drosophila using genetics, multiphoton microscopy, and electrophysiology. He then completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Tom Clandinin, Ph.D., at Stanford University. There, he collaborated on the development of a method for whole-brain calcium imaging to detail the intrinsic functional neuronal network in Drosophila. He has been the applications scientist for multiphoton microscopy at Bruker since May 2022, and he now works to make sure that experiments are running smoothly and that Bruker continues to innovate in support of the future of neuroscience research.