Cable-free brain imaging for multiple free-moving animals with miniature wireless microscopes

SIGNIFICANCE: Although several miniature microscope systems have been developed to allow researchers to image brain neuron activities of free moving rodents, they generally require a long cable connecting to the miniature microscope. It not only limits the behavior of the animal, but also makes it challenging to study multiple animals simultaneously. AIM: The aim of this work is to develop a fully wireless miniature microscope that would break constraints from the connecting cables so that the animals could move completely freely, allowing neuroscience researchers to study more of animals’ behaviors simultaneously, such as social behavior. APPROACH: We present a wireless mini-microscope (wScope) that enables simultaneously real-time brain imaging preview from multiple free-moving animals. The wScope has a mass of 2.7 g and a maximum frame rate of 25 Hz at [Formula: see text] field of view with [Formula: see text] resolution. RESULTS: The performance of the wScope is validated via real-time imaging of the cerebral blood flow and the activity of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) of different mice. CONCLUSIONS: The wScope provides a powerful tool for brain imaging of multiple free moving animals in their much larger spaces and more naturalistic environments.