In Vivo Imaging of Biophoton Emission in the Whole Brain of Mice

Abstract

In recent years, studies have demonstrated that biophoton is a medium for the transmission and processing of neural information. However, such studies were mainly carried out by using brain slices combined with biophoton imaging technology, while there are few reports on in vivo brain biophoton imaging. In this study, the ultraweak biophoton imaging system (UBIS) was employed to carry out an in vivo biophoton imaging for the whole brain of mice. It was found that the biophoton emission of whole brain in the slightly anesthetized mice was significantly higher than that of the background, suggesting that the brain of living mouse emits a certain intensity of stable biophotons. The biophoton imaging established in this study for the in vivo mouse whole brain may provide a new technical method for further study of the relationship between the biophoton and brain functions, and give new ideas for developing diagnostic method of neuropsychiatric diseases.