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Takeshi Imai

@imailab.bsky.social
274 followers 155 following 23 posts

Neuroscientist. Studying neuronal circuit development, chemical senses, and light microscopy-based connectomics. Professor at Kyushu University. Website: www.lab.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp/dn-en X: @TakeshiImaiLab

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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
We also successfully cleared the cerebral cortex of live mice. The brightness was 3x higher in L5. Sensory responses remained unchanged. We also established chronic imaging using a repeated clearing protocol, without any obvious inflammation or behavioral abnormalities. (8/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
SeeDB-Live enabled us to perform 1P functional imaging of brain slices. This movie shows 1P voltage imaging (Voltron2) of back-propagating action potentials in mitral cell dendrites, captured with a high-speed CMOS camera at 2 kHz. Single shot, no averaging. (7/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
SeeDB-Live is useful for functional imaging of brain slices. This movie shows 2P imaging of GCaMP6f in mitral cells during the clearing of an olfactory bulb slice. Spontaneous activity was more clearly visualized after clearing, while the firing pattern remained unchanged. (6/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Using patch-clamp recording, we confirmed that neuronal firing properties remain largely unchanged after clearing. This was a tough experiment, because neurons become invisible after clearing. Nao Nakagawa-Tamagawa worked very hard to patch invisible neurons in cortical slices! (5/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
To minimize osmolarity, we screened high-MW chemicals and found that BSA has an exceptionally low osmolarity. After fine-tuning the ionic compositions, we established a live tissue clearing agent, SeeDB-Live. The movies show the clearing of a HeLa cell spheroid. (4/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
The principle of optical clearing is simple. When the refractive index mismatch is minimized, the light travels uniformly and samples become transparent. For example, glass marbles with a refractive index of 1.52 become transparent when immersed in oil with the same index. (2/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Our live tissue clearing paper is out in @natmethods.nature.com! We achieved optical clearing of mammalian brain tissues without compromising normal neuronal function. Big congrats to Shigenori Inagaki and our wonderful collaborators! 🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... (1/10)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
It is well known that the “average” spine density in the cortex decreases during adolescence. However, we found that spine density in the middle part of apical dendrites greatly increases during adolescence. This contrasts with basal dendrites, where spine density reduces. (3/6)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Using tissue clearing and super-resolution imaging, we found that spine density is highly skewed in apical dendrites of cortical L5 neurons in mice. The middle part had the highest spine density. In contrast, spine density was almost uniform in basal and oblique dendrites. (2/6)
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
How does neural activity control developmental synapse elimination? Here is a new review paper from the lab: Activity-dependent synaptic competition and dendrite pruning in developing mitral cells. www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu...
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
From our recent paper: 7-color Tetbow image of the neocortex🌈 We can distinguish hundreds of neurons based on the combinatorial expression of 7 FPs. Here is the list of plasmids for Tetbow experiments if you are interested (all available from Addgene): sites.google.com/site/seedbre...
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Takeshi Imai @imailab.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Hello, this is my first Bluesky post! We love neuroimaging🔬 Attached are covers from our lab featuring our favorite neurons, mitral cells in the olfactory bulb and L5 neurons in the neocortex. What's your #FavoriteNeuron?
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