New technique captures unprecedented view of the active brain

Complex cognition and behavior, in animals and humans alike, hinges on information flowing across a network of deeply interconnected brain cells. For scientists, the scale of that network posed a major obstacle to better understanding the mechanics of cognition, because available imaging tools were historically incapable of tracing how neurons fire in sync from the far reaches of the cortex. That need gave rise to the idea of a “mesoscope”—an imaging technology with microscopic resolution fine enough to resolve single cells, but a macroscopic field of view large enough to capture neurons across broad swathes of the brain.