Real-time scanning-slit in vivo confocal microscope based on bilateral scanning which solves the problem of specimen motion blur: Applications to ocular neuroimaging

Abstract

The standard method to observe nerves in tissue is to use some agent such as silver or gold compounds which are localized in the nerve fibers and increase their contrast. These were the techniques developed by Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Cajal’s work was published in a two-volume edition in French in 1909 with the title Histologie du Systéme Nerveux de l’ Homme et des Vertébrés. This work was republished in 1952-1955 as Histologie du Systéme Nerveux by L. Azoulay, Instituto Ramón y Cajal.Alternatively a fluorescent compound may be introduced near the cell bodies of the neurons and the compound diffuses along the lipid membranes of the nerve. Subsequent observations of the specimen in a fluorescent microscope provides the observer with a bright, high contrast image of the nerve and its branches and bifurcations.The standard instrument for the observation of the cornea is the slit-lamp. The slit-lamp was invented by Allvar Gullstrand. Gullstrand made major contributions to the theory of astigmatism and to the mechanism of accommodation of the eye.