ABSTRACT
Recordings of the intrinsic optical signal (IOS) are widely used in the functional imaging of the central nervous system in vivo. However, the IOS technique has been mainly described in the adult brain and the possibility of using IOS for the robust functional imaging of the immature brain and the optimal parameters for IOS recording and analysis in the analysis in the immature brain tissue remain largely unknown. Here, we show that the use of the near to infrared light and automatic PCA enable efficient detection of IOS in the neonatal rat pups' whisker-related somato- sensory cortex during the first three weeks after the birth. IOS detection using automatic PCA survived fourfold artificial noise increase in the baseline, indicating on the robustness of this approach. Thus, our findings indicate that IOS imaging using near infrared light and automatic PCA is efficient technique for the functional imaging of somatosensory cortex in the neonatal rats.
