Integrated Calendar

With the advent of super-resolution microscopy, the last ~25 years have seen a revolution in optical microscopy, pushing the spatial resolution capabilities of optical microscopy towards length scales that were typically accessible only by electron microscopy. In my presentation, I will give a short overview of the different principal approaches to super-resolution microscopy. I will briefly discuss the concepts of Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM), Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy, and Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (SMLM). Then, I will focus on two specific techniques where our group has contributed most. The first is Image Scanning Microscopy or ISM [1-3]. This technique uses a simple combination of confocal microscopy with wide-field image detection for doubling the resolution of conventional microscopy. I will explain the physical principals behind ISM, and the various kinds of its implementation. Meanwhile, ISM has found broad and wide applications and lies behind state-of-the-art commercial systems such as the extremely successful AiryScan microscope from Carl Zeiss Jena. The second method is Super-resolution Optical Fluctuation Imaging (SOFI), which uses the stochastic blinking of emitters for overcoming the classical diffraction limit of resolution, similar to single-molecule localization microscopy, but with much relaxed demands on blinking behavior and label density [4]. The third method is Metal-Induced Energy Transfer imaging or MIET imaging [5-6]. It addresses the axial resolution in microscopy, which is particularly important for resolving three-dimensional structures. MIET is based on the intricate electrodynamic interaction of fluorescent emitters with metallic nanostructures. I will present the basic principles and several applications of this technique.

Our ability to correctly diagnose and treat mental illness is limited by the overlap in symptoms of many disorders, despite differing etiology. Determining the proper course of treatment is quite difficult because treating individual symptoms does not always lead to successful remission and typically involves a trial-and-error approach. Task-based functional MRI has become a highly useful tool for determining the brain regions involved in cognition and behavior in humans, with the potential to be used to find biomarkers of mental illness and treatment outcomes. Much of the research in this domain has focused on the differences in brain activation between groups of individuals with specific mental disorders and typically developing “control” groups. However, by relating brain activation patterns of clinical groups to symptom severity, developmental processes, and response to treatment at the individual level, we can determine brain-based markers that have the potential to be used as diagnostic tools in the future and to determine whether certain treatments would be helpful based on specific brain activation patterns. In this talk, I will present data from studies using task-based functional MRI in autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and childhood adversity that illustrate the potential of this technology for diagnostic and treatment purposes. I will also discuss the promises and limitations of using fMRI as a clinical tool.

TBA