Long-term intravital subcellular imaging with confocal scanning light-field microscopy
Technology tamfitronics MainIntravital imaging1,2,3,4,5,6,7 is vital for studying diverse physiopathological processes, such as brain functions and immune responses, which necessitates high spatiotemporal resolution, high fidelity and low phototoxicity to capture fine structures and transient three-dimensional (3D) dynamics non-invasively8,9,10,11,12,13. An essential difference between in vitro and in vivo imaging is the presence of intense background fluorescence originating from out-of-focus signals and autofluorescence in scattered tissue or densely labeled samples, which poses a fundamental constraint on the imaging fidelity14,15,16. Confocal microscopy17,18,19 is the most widely used technique to address this problem with optical sectioning. By rejecting the out-of-focus fluorescence with a pinhole, slit or pinhole array, only the in-focus photons within a very shallow depth...
