Two images of the same brain slice. The left image was obtained using a new microscopy technique called computational scattered light imaging (ComSLI or SLI) that disentangles densely interwoven nerve fibres. The artificial colours indicate the direction of nerve fibres in the image plane: red is horizontal and cyan is vertical. Researcher Dr Miriam Menzel developed the technique at the Jülich Research Centre and now continues to work on it at the Department of Imaging Physics (Faculty of Applied Sciences). “We shine light at different angles through hair-thin brain slices and analyse the resulting scattering patterns,” explains Menzel. “We’re not taking a picture of neurons or synapses; we want to know how they are wired. This is important for understanding brain function and dysfunction.” Menzel compared SLI with two other imaging techniques: diffusion MRI (dMRI) used in clinics, and with small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS, the image on the right) – a synchrotron technique from material science to map internal structures. The results are promising: SLI data are consistent with those from dMRI and SAXS in the examined brain slices, but SLI provides higher resolution than dMRI and is more accessible, cheaper and faster than the other techniques. “This is an important milestone,” says Menzel. “We can perform SLI measurements with a simple LED light source and camera in just a few seconds, requiring neither a multi-million synchrotron nor an MRI scanner. As a portable system, it could easily be set up in pathology laboratories to assist clinical research.”