New MRI Technique Tracks Brain Activity at Millisecond Timescales

The method, dubbed “DIANA,” could transform neuroscientists’ understanding of how the brain works, researchers say—though for now, it’s only been tested in anesthetized mice.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Images from a new brain imaging technique, DIANA

Images taken at 5 millisecond intervals (running in rows from top left to bottom right) show the propagation of signals in an anesthetized mouse's brain—in this case, in response to a light being shone in the mouse's eye.

Image credit:P.T. TOI ET AL., SCIENCE, 2022.

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A new approach to magnetic resonance imaging could allow neuroscientists to noninvasively track the propagation of brain signals on millisecond timescales, according to a study published yesterday (October 13) in Science.

The technique, which its creators call “direct imaging of neuronal activity” (DIANA), uses existing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to take series of quickfire, partial images, and then combines those images to create a high-resolution picture of which bits of the brain are active when.

DIANA has so far only been tested in anesthetized mice, and the mechanisms underlying it aren’t entirely clear, notes Matthew Self, a neuroscientist at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience who wasn’t involved in the work. But provided it can be replicated in other labs, the method could represent a “major advance” in brain imaging, he says.

“This would be the first technique which would be able to noninvasively measure neural activity with both a ...

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Images from a novel brain imaging technique, DIANA

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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