Welcome to my first blog ever! As a quick introduction, the Exploratorium’s Microscope Imaging Station (MIS) focuses on the capture and display of compelling, relevant biomedical events found in the microscopic world. In carrying out this mission, we use light microscopes, live organisms and tissues, and digital technologies. It’s a world of cells and small organisms and their various interactions.

Over the remainder of this calendar year, we will be hosting a series of topically relevant programs on cell biology. We just completed a public presentation by Stephen J. Smith of Stanford University . His talked focused on the development of the connections between the eye and brain in Zebrafish. The primary area of his interest is the fish’s optic tectum, which essentially corresponds to our optic cortex; it’s the place where vision happens in our brains. To make the connections between the retina and brain, neurons need to grow and attach to specific locations and form specific relationships. It’s a very precise neuronal circuit that gives us (and the fish) vision, but it starts out as a major jumble of nerve cell processes.

It turns out that Zebrafish embryos are really great organisms in which to study developing neurons. They’re easy to get, raise, and observe under a microscope, and they’re fast developing vertebrates from zygote to highly functional juvenile fish in just 6 days. We took some pictures of our Zebrafish fry, which will be incorporated into the MIS website this spring, and they’re very cool. They’re not fully refined yet, but I think you’ll get an idea from them.

The image of the live Zebrafish is a top view of it head. The most obvious structure is a faint X like structure in light blue in the center of the image, and the filamentous wispy lines composing the X are the nerve cell processes (axons) that run between the eyes and the brain. Stay tuned for more on this one!