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Inventors of two-photon microscopy win Danish neuroscience prize

Xinhua, March 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Four researchers have won a prestigious world neuroscience award for their contribution to the revolutionary technique of two-photon microscopy, the award organizers announced here on Monday.

Denmark's one-million-euro (about 1.9 million U.S. dollars) Brain Prize 2015 was awarded to Germany's Winfried Denk and Arthur Konnerth, and two American scientists Karel Svoboda and David Tank, for the invention, development and application of two-photon microscopy, a transformative tool in brain research.

Since its invention in 1990, two-photon microscopy has dramatically changed the way the brain is studied and it allows scientists to examine the finest structures of the brain in real time.

"This is a huge step forward in the understanding of the physical mechanisms of the human brain and in the understanding of how the brain's networks process information," the award committee said in a press release.

Furthermore, researchers have been able to follow how connections between nerve cells are established in the developing brain.

Denk, director of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany, was the driving force behind the invention of two-photon microscopy.

Together with Tank and Svoboda, Denk used the technique as an innovative tool to visualize activity at the level of the neurons' fundamental signalling units, the "dendritic spines."

Konnerth built on this invention to simultaneously monitor the activity in thousands of synaptic connections in living animals, and Svoboda went on to use two-photon microscopy to map the changes that occur in the brain's network when animals learn new skills.

"Thanks to these four scientists we're now able to study the normal brain's development and attempt to understand what goes wrong when we're affected by destructive diseases such as Alzheimer's and other types of dementia," said Prof. Povl Krogsgaard-Larsen of Copenhagen University, who is chairman of the prize selection committee, in the statement.

"More than that, we are able to visualize how adaptive behavioural changes affect the nerve cells of living animals," Krogsgaard-Larsen said.

The prize is awarded annually by non-profit organization Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation.

The four researchers will share the prize, which will be presented at a ceremony in Copenhagen on May 7 by Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik. Endit