Misha Ahrens
mishaahrens.bsky.social
Misha Ahrens
@mishaahrens.bsky.social
Neuroscientist @Janelia, HHMI
www.ahrenslab.org
Thanks to all authors, including Wei Zheng and Guoqiang Yu, Amy Hu, and the Janelia @hhmijanelia.bsky.social and 4DCP communities, Maneesh Sahani, and others.
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
and with Igor Siwanowicz are working towards whole-body atlases.
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Together with Paul Tillberg, we advanced Whole Body Expansion Microscopy to access the subcellular scales of the organism and match cellular dynamics to their molecular substrate,
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
visualizes gut peristalsis together with enteric nervous system activity,
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
skin epithelium (video 100x sped up),
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
WHOLISTIC reveals many phenomena, including traveling waves along the kidney,
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Preprint -
Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Background from past work: We knew that during normal giving-up behavior, NE activates astrocytes as fish struggle to regain control. After about 20 seconds of this failure integration, astrocytes then activate neurons that shut off swim attempts. Ketamine's effects looked a bit similar. Old movie:
December 18, 2024 at 7:22 PM
Imaging neurons and astroglia during ketamine exposure showed strong activation of noradrenergic (NE) neurons in the hindbrain. Astrocytes were activated through NE receptors, and for about 20 minutes, were in a hyper-excited state:
December 18, 2024 at 7:22 PM