2020/2/6 A paper on in-vivo sensors has been published by Nature Communications. This work was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) under the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) program.

“CMOS-based bio-image sensor spatially resolves neural activity dependent proton dynamics in the living brain”
著者名:Hiroshi Horiuchi, Masakazu Agetsuma, Junko Ishida, Yusuke Nakamura, Dennis Lawrence Cheung, Shin Nanasaki, Yasuyuki Kimura, Tatsuya Iwata, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Kazuaki Sawada, Junichi Nabekura
DOI:10.1038/s41467-020-14571-y

 

◎We developed a thin CMOS ion image sensor that can be applied to living organisms, and succeeded in visualizing pH in the brain.We succeeded in visualizing pH in the brain by developing a thin CMOS ion image sensor that can be applied to living organisms.

◎We were able to detect dynamic changes in pH in the brain in response to visual stimuli.

Abnormal pH (hydrogen ion concentration) has been observed in brain pathologies such as cerebral ischemia and epilepsy, and ultra-high resolution measurement of pH in the brain of living organisms may lead to the elucidation of new disease mechanisms and treatment methods. Hiroshi Horiuchi, Assistant Professor and Junichi Nabekura, Director of the Institute of Physiology, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, and Kazuaki Sawada, Professor of Toyohashi University of Technology, have developed a high-definition pH imaging tool that can be applied to living organisms. By visualizing brain pH in real time, they have succeeded for the first time in the world in capturing the dynamic changes in pH in the microenvironment as a result of neural activity. By applying this technique to future pathological research, it is expected to elucidate the mechanism of diseases.

The results of this research were published in the British scientific journal Nature Communications on February 5, 2020 (UK time).