Abstract
Two-photon excitation (2PE) overcomes many challenges in fluorescence microscopy. Compared to confocal microscopy, 2PE microscopy improves depth penetration, owing to the longer excitation wavelength required and to the ability to collect scattered emission photons as a useful signal. It also minimizes photodamage because lower energy photons are used and because fluorescence is confined to the geometrical focus of the laser spot. 2PE is therefore ideal for high-resolution, deep-tissue, time-lapse imaging of dynamic processes in cell biology. Here, we provide examples of important applications of 2PE for in vivo imaging of neuronal structure and signals; we also describe how it can be combined with optogenetics or photolysis of caged molecules to simultaneously probe and control neuronal activity.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Miyawaki A (2011) Proteins on the move: insights gained from fluorescent protein technologies. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 12:656–668
Eigen M, Rigler R (1994) Sorting single molecules: application to diagnostics and evolutionary biotechnology. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 91:5740–5747
Wilt BA, Burns LD, Wei Ho ET et al (2009) Advances in light microscopy for neuroscience. Annu Rev Neurosci 32:435–506
Hell SW, Wichmann J (1994) Breaking the diffraction resolution limit by stimulated emission: stimulated-emission-depletion fluorescence microscopy. Opt Lett 19:780–782
Hell SW (2003) Toward fluorescence nanoscopy. Nat Biotechnol 21:1347–1355
Sigrist SJ, Sabatini BL (2012) Optical super-resolution microscopy in neurobiology. Curr Opin Neurobiol 22:86–93
Denk W, Strickler JH, Webb WW (1990) Two-photon laser scanning fluorescence microscopy. Science 248:73–76
Svoboda K, Yasuda R (2006) Principles of two-photon excitation microscopy and its applications to neuroscience. Neuron 50:823–839
Denk W, Svoboda K (1997) Photon upmanship: why multiphoton imaging is more than a gimmick. Neuron 18:351–357
Theer P, Hasan MT, Denk W (2003) Two-photon imaging to a depth of 1000 microm in living brains by use of a Ti:Al2O3 regenerative amplifier. Opt Lett 28:1022–1024
Nikolenko V, Nemet B, Yuste R (2003) A two-photon and second-harmonic microscope. Methods 30:3–15
Entenberg D, Wyckoff J, Gligorijevic B et al (2011) Setup and use of a two-laser multiphoton microscope for multichannel intravital fluorescence imaging. Nat Protoc 6:1500–1520
Gray NW, Weimer RM, Bureau I et al (2006) Rapid redistribution of synaptic PSD-95 in the neocortex in vivo. PLoS Biol 4:e370
Kobat D, Durst ME, Nishimura N et al (2009) Deep tissue multiphoton microscopy using longer wavelength excitation. Nat Protoc 17:13354–13364
Mittmann W, Wallace DJ, Czubayko U et al (2011) Two-photon calcium imaging of evoked activity from L5 somatosensory neurons in vivo. Nat Neurosci 14:1089–1093
Pologruto TA, Sabatini BL, Svoboda K (2003) ScanImage: flexible software for operating laser scanning microscopes. Biomed Eng Online 2:13
Grewe BF, Helmchen F (2009) Optical probing of neuronal ensemble activity. Curr Opin Neurobiol 19(5):520–529
Mostany R, Chowdhury TG, Johnston DG et al (2010) Local hemodynamics dictate long-term dendritic plasticity in peri-infarct cortex. J Neurosci 30:14116–14126
Mostany R, Portera-Cailliau C (2008) A method for 2-photon imaging of blood flow in the neocortex through a cranial window. J Vis Exp. (12). pii: 678. doi:10.3791/678. PMID: 19066563
Schaffer CB, Friedman B, Nishimura N et al (2006) Two-photon imaging of cortical surface microvessels reveals a robust redistribution in blood flow after vascular occlusion. PLoS Biol 4:e22
Kleinfeld D, Mitra PP, Helmchen F et al (1998) Fluctuations and stimulus-induced changes in blood flow observed in individual capillaries in layers 2 through 4 of rat neocortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95:15741–15746
Klunk WE, Bacskai BJ, Mathis CA et al (2002) Imaging Abeta plaques in living transgenic mice with multiphoton microscopy and methoxy-X04, a systemically administered Congo red derivative. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 61:797–805
Nimmerjahn A, Kirchhoff F, Kerr JN et al (2004) Sulforhodamine 101 as a specific marker of astroglia in the neocortex in vivo. Nat Methods 1:31–37
Shaner NC, Steinbach PA, Tsien RY (2005) A guide to choosing fluorescent proteins. Nat Methods 2:905–909
Chudakov DM, Matz MV, Lukyanov S et al (2010) Fluorescent proteins and their applications in imaging living cells and tissues. Physiol Rev 90:1103–1163
Lutcke H, Murayama M, Hahn T et al (2010) Optical recording of neuronal activity with a genetically-encoded calcium indicator in anesthetized and freely moving mice. Front Neural Circ 4:9
Tian L, Hires SA, Mao T et al (2009) Imaging neural activity in worms, flies and mice with improved GCaMP calcium indicators. Nat Methods 6:875–881
Looger LL, Griesbeck O (2012) Genetically encoded neural activity indicators. Curr Opin Neurobiol 22:18–23
Mank M, Santos AF, Direnberger S et al (2008) A genetically encoded calcium indicator for chronic in vivo two-photon imaging. Nat Methods 5:805–811
Gan WB, Grutzendler J, Wong WT et al (2000) Multicolor “DiOlistic” labeling of the nervous system using lipophilic dye combinations. Neuron 27:219–225
Portera-Cailliau C, Pan DT, Yuste R (2003) Activity-regulated dynamic behavior of early dendritic protrusions: evidence for different types of dendritic filopodia. J Neurosci 23:7129–7142
Grienberger C, Konnerth A (2012) Imaging calcium in neurons. Neuron 73:862–885
Garaschuk O, Milos R, Konnerth A (2006) Targeted bulk-loading of fluorescent indicators for two-photon brain imaging in vivo. Nat Protoc 1:380–386
Golshani P, Portera-Cailliau C (2008) In vivo 2-photon calcium imaging in layer 2/3 of mice. J Vis, Exp
MacLean J, Yuste R (2005) Imaging action potentials with calcium indicators: practical guide. In: Yuste R, Konnerth A (eds) Imaging neurons a laboratory manual, 2nd edn. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, pp 351–355
Feng G, Mellor RH, Bernstein M et al (2000) Imaging neuronal subsets in transgenic mice expressing multiple spectral variants of GFP. Neuron 28:41–51
Grutzendler J, Kasthuri N, Gan WB (2002) Long-term dendritic spine stability in the adult cortex. Nature 420:812–816
Trachtenberg JT, Chen BE, Knott GW et al (2002) Long-term in vivo imaging of experience-dependent synaptic plasticity in adult cortex. Nature 420:788–794
Jefferis GS, Livet J (2012) Sparse and combinatorial neuron labelling. Curr Opin Neurobiol 22:101–110
Judkewitz B, Rizzi M, Kitamura K et al (2009) Targeted single-cell electroporation of mammalian neurons in vivo. Nat Protoc 4:862–869
Saito T, Nakatsuji N (2001) Efficient gene transfer into the embryonic mouse brain using in vivo electroporation. Dev Biol 240:237–246
Dixit R, Lu F, Cantrup R et al (2011) Efficient gene delivery into multiple CNS territories using in utero electroporation. J Vis Exp. (52). pii: 2957. doi:10.3791/2957. PMID: 21730943
Cruz-Martin A, Crespo M, Portera-Cailliau C (2010) Delayed stabilization of dendritic spines in fragile X mice. J Neurosci 30:7793–7803
Atasoy D, Aponte Y, Su HH et al (2008) A FLEX switch targets Channelrhodopsin-2 to multiple cell types for imaging and long-range circuit mapping. J Neurosci 28:7025–7030
Lowery RL, Majewska AK (2010) Intracranial injection of adeno-associated viral vectors. J Vis Exp. (45). pii: 2140. doi: 10.3791/2140. PMID: 21113119
Schultz BR, Chamberlain JS (2008) Recombinant adeno-associated virus transduction and integration. Mol Ther 16:1189–1199
Holtmaat A, Bonhoeffer T, Chow DK et al (2009) Long-term, high-resolution imaging in the mouse neocortex through a chronic cranial window. Nat Protoc 4:1128–1144
Mostany R, Portera-Cailliau C (2008) A craniotomy surgery procedure for chronic brain imaging. J Vis Exp. (12). pii: 680. doi:10.3791/680. PMID: 19066562
Cruz-Martin A, Portera-Cailliau C (2010) In vivo imaging of axonal and dendritic structures in developing cortex. In: Sharpe J, Wong R (eds) Imaging in developmental biology: a laboratory manual, 1st edn. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, pp 513–522
Yang G, Pan F, Parkhurst CN et al (2010) Thinned-skull cranial window technique for long-term imaging of the cortex in live mice. Nat Protoc 5:201–208
Drew PJ, Shih AY, Driscoll JD et al (2010) Chronic optical access through a polished and reinforced thinned skull. Nat Methods 7:981–984
Jung JC, Mehta AD, Aksay E et al (2004) In vivo mammalian brain imaging using one- and two-photon fluorescence microendoscopy. J Neurophysiol 92:3121–3133
Xu HT, Pan F, Yang G et al (2007) Choice of cranial window type for in vivo imaging affects dendritic spine turnover in the cortex. Nat Neurosci 10:549–551
Yasuda R, Harvey CD, Zhong H et al (2006) Supersensitive Ras activation in dendrites and spines revealed by two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging. Nat Neurosci 9:283–291
Holtmaat A, Svoboda K (2009) Experience-dependent structural synaptic plasticity in the mammalian brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 10:647–658
Yu X, Zuo Y (2011) Spine plasticity in the motor cortex. Curr Opin Neurobiol 21:169–174
Nimmerjahn A, Kirchhoff F, Helmchen F (2005) Resting microglial cells are highly dynamic surveillants of brain parenchyma in vivo. Science 308:1314–1318
Spires TL, Meyer-Luehmann M, Stern EA et al (2005) Dendritic spine abnormalities in amyloid precursor protein transgenic mice demonstrated by gene transfer and intravital multiphoton microscopy. J Neurosci 25:7278–7287
Tsai J, Grutzendler J, Duff K et al (2004) Fibrillar amyloid deposition leads to local synaptic abnormalities and breakage of neuronal branches. Nat Neurosci 7:1181–1183
Sabatini BL, Svoboda K (2000) Analysis of calcium channels in single spines using optical fluctuation analysis. Nature 408:589–593
Chen X, Leischner U, Rochefort NL et al (2011) Functional mapping of single spines in cortical neurons in vivo. Nature 475:501–505
Cossart R, Aronov D, Yuste R (2003) Attractor dynamics of network UP states in the neocortex. Nature 423:283–288
Kerr JN, Greenberg D, Helmchen F (2005) Imaging input and output of neocortical networks in vivo. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102:14063–14068
Ohki K, Chung S, Ch'ng YH et al (2005) Functional imaging with cellular resolution reveals precise micro-architecture in visual cortex. Nature 433:597–603
Gobel W, Helmchen F (2007) In vivo calcium imaging of neural network function. Physiology 22:358–365
Hendel T, Mank M, Schnell B et al (2008) Fluorescence changes of genetic calcium indicators and OGB-1 correlated with neural activity and calcium in vivo and in vitro. J Neurosci 28:7399–7411
Perron A, Mutoh H, Akemann W et al (2009) Second and third generation voltage-sensitive fluorescent proteins for monitoring membrane potential. Front Neural Circ 2:5
Ahrens KF, Heider B, Lee H et al (2012) Two-photon scanning microscopy of in vivo sensory responses of cortical neurons genetically encoded with a fluorescent voltage sensor in rat. Front Neural Circ 6:15
Chanda B, Blunck R, Faria LC et al (2005) A hybrid approach to measuring electrical activity in genetically specified neurons. Nat Neurosci 8:1619–1626
Fenno L, Yizhar O, Deisseroth K (2011) The development and application of optogenetics. Annu Rev Neurosci 34:389–412
Bernstein JG, Garrity PA, Boyden ES (2012) Optogenetics and thermogenetics: technologies for controlling the activity of targeted cells within intact neural circuits. Curr Opin Neurobiol 22:61–71
Deisseroth K (2011) Optogenetics. Nat Methods 8:26–29
Zhang YP, Oertner TG (2007) Optical induction of synaptic plasticity using a light-sensitive channel. Nat Methods 4:139–141
Peron S, Svoboda K (2011) From cudgel to scalpel: toward precise neural control with optogenetics. Nat Methods 8:30–34
Papagiakoumou E, Anselmi F, Begue A et al (2010) Scanless two-photon excitation of channelrhodopsin-2. Nat Methods 7:848–854
Ellis-Davies GC (2009) Basics of photoactivation. Cold Spring Harb Protoc. pdb top55
Matsuzaki M, Ellis-Davies GC, Nemoto T et al (2001) Dendritic spine geometry is critical for AMPA receptor expression in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. Nat Neurosci 4:1086–1092
Sobczyk A, Scheuss V, Svoboda K (2005) NMDA receptor subunit-dependent [Ca2+] signaling in individual hippocampal dendritic spines. J Neurosci 25:6037–6046
Ashby MC, Isaac JT (2011) Maturation of a recurrent excitatory neocortical circuit by experience-dependent unsilencing of newly formed dendritic spines. Neuron 70:510–521
Noguchi J, Nagaoka A, Watanabe S et al (2011) In vivo two-photon uncaging of glutamate revealing the structure-function relationships of dendritic spines in the neocortex of adult mice. J Physiol 589:2447–2457
Oheim M, Beaurepaire E, Chaigneau E et al (2001) Two-photon microscopy in brain tissue: parameters influencing the imaging depth. J Neurosci Methods 111:29–37
Rueckel M, Mack-Bucher JA, Denk W (2006) Adaptive wavefront correction in two-photon microscopy using coherence-gated wavefront sensing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103:17137–17142
Booth MJ (2007) Adaptive optics in microscopy. Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci 365:2829–2843
Engelbrecht CJ, Gobel W, Helmchen F (2009) Enhanced fluorescence signal in nonlinear microscopy through supplementary fiber-optic light collection. Opt Express 17:6421–6435
Flusberg BA, Cocker ED, Piyawattanametha W et al (2005) Fiber-optic fluorescence imaging. Nat Methods 2:941–950
Cheng A, Goncalves JT, Golshani P et al (2011) Simultaneous two-photon calcium imaging at different depths with spatiotemporal multiplexing. Nat Methods 8:139–142
Lillis KP, Eng A, White JA et al (2008) Two-photon imaging of spatially extended neuronal network dynamics with high temporal resolution. J Neurosci Methods 172:178–184
Grewe BF, Langer D, Kasper H et al (2010) High-speed in vivo calcium imaging reveals neuronal network activity with near-millisecond precision. Nat Methods 7:399–405
Duemani Reddy G, Kelleher K, Fink R et al (2008) Three-dimensional random access multiphoton microscopy for functional imaging of neuronal activity. Nat Neurosci 11:713–720
Planchon TA, Gao L, Milkie DE et al (2011) Rapid three-dimensional isotropic imaging of living cells using Bessel beam plane illumination. Nat Methods 8:417–423
Truong TV, Supatto W, Koos DS et al (2011) Deep and fast live imaging with two-photon scanned light-sheet microscopy. Nat Methods 8:757–760
Nikolenko V, Watson BO, Araya R et al (2008) SLM microscopy: scanless two-photon imaging and photostimulation with spatial light modulators. Front Neural Circ 2:5
Dombeck DA, Harvey CD, Tian L et al (2010) Functional imaging of hippocampal place cells at cellular resolution during virtual navigation. Nat Neurosci 13:1433–1440
Kerr JN, Nimmerjahn A (2012) Functional imaging in freely moving animals. Curr Opin Neurobiol 22:45–53
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Stein Oppenheimer Endowment Award and by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (5R01HD054453 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and 5RC1NS068093 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Mostany, R., Miquelajauregui, A., Shtrahman, M., Portera-Cailliau, C. (2015). Two-Photon Excitation Microscopy and Its Applications in Neuroscience. In: Verveer, P. (eds) Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1251. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2080-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2080-8_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2079-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2080-8
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols