Highly sensitive volumetric single-molecule imaging.

Volumetric subcellular imaging has long been essential for studying structures and dynamics in cells and tissues. However, due to limited imaging speed and depth of field, it has been challenging to perform live-cell imaging and single-particle tracking. Here we report a 2.5D fluorescence microscopy combined with highly inclined illumination beams, which significantly reduce not only the image acquisition time but also the out-of-focus background by ∼2-fold compared to epi-illumination. Instead of sequential z-scanning, our method projects a certain depth of volumetric information onto a 2D plane in a single shot using multi-layered glass for incoherent wavefront splitting, enabling high photon detection efficiency. We apply our method to multi-color immunofluorescence imaging and volumetric super-resolution imaging, covering ∼3-4 µm thickness of samples without z-scanning. Additionally, we demonstrate that our approach can substantially extend the observation time of single-particle tracking in living cells.

Construction of sulfur-containing N-vinylimides: N-addition of imides to propargyl sulfonium salts.

An N-addition reaction between imides and propargyl sulfonium salts was developed to afford sulfur-containing N-vinylimides with moderate to excellent yields. Under the activation of NaOAc·3H2O, imides could undergo deprotonation and propargyl sulfonium salts could isomerize to allenic sulfonium salts. The N-nucleophilic attack initiates the reaction and gives the desired products. Various imides, including arylimides, aliphatic imides and N-(arylsulfonyl) alkyl acylamides, and even bioactive saccharin, thalidomide and pomalidomide could provide organosulfur N-vinylimides compounds. The simple, mild and metal-free reaction conditions, the broad scope of substrates, gram-scale synthesis and convenient transformation embody the synthetic superiority of this process.

Characteristics of brain connectivity during verbal fluency test: Convolutional neural network for functional near-infrared spectroscopy analysis.

Human connectome describes the complicated connection matrix of nervous system among human brain. It also possesses high potential of assisting doctors to monitor the brain injuries and recoveries in patients. In order to unravel the enigma of neuron connections and functions, previous research has strived to dig out the relations between neurons and brain regions. Verbal fluency test (VFT) is a general neuropsychological test, which has been used in functional connectivity investigations. In this study, we employed convolutional neural network (CNN) on a brain hemoglobin concentration changes (ΔHB) map obtained during VFT to investigate the connections of activated brain areas and different mental status. Our results show that feature of functional connectivity can be identified accurately with the employment of CNN on ΔHB mapping, which is beneficial to improve the understanding of brain functional connections.