Engineers have developed a new lens-free ultraminiaturized endoscope — the width of a few human hairs in size — that is less invasive and produces high-quality images when inserted into the body. Currently, standard microendoscopes are about half a millimeter to a few millimeters in diameter, and require larger, more invasive lenses for better imaging. While lensless microendoscopes exist, the optical fiber within that scans an area pixel by pixel frequently bends and loses imaging ability when moved.
Now, engineers at Johns Hopkins University in the United States have developed a microendoscope capable of examining neurons firing off in the brains of animals such as mice and rats. Scientists were able to create a lens-free ultra-miniaturized microendoscope that, compared to a conventional lens-based microendoscope, increases the amount researchers can see and improves image quality with an instrument that is less than half the size in width of existing microendoscopes.
The researchers achieved this by using a flat grid that randomly blocks light creating a projection in a known light pattern.While this creates a messy image, it provides a bounty of information about where the light originates, and that information can be computationally reconstructed into a clearer image.
