Wide-field optical imaging along the neurovascular coupling pathway

Understanding how different diseases of the central nervous system affect neurovascular coupling will allow for linking changes in neural or metabolic dysfunction to changes in hemodynamic signaling upon which blood-based imaging methods rely. We developed a dual fluorophore imaging system for simultaneous, high-speed mapping of neural, metabolic, and hemodynamic activity. Proof-of-concept measurements of spontaneous and stimulus-evoked dynamics are presented in awake and anesthetized mice. This flexible hardware platform allows for integrating optogenetic stimulation for all optical neural circuit interrogation and readout, and for examining the interaction between multiple cell populations.