Congratulations to Yiming, Gewei and Zhentao on the publication of their excellent work, Optical Windows for Transcranial Brain Imaging in Living Mice, Skull Thinning, Clearing, and Beyond, in Advanced Science!
This study systematically evaluates current transcranial optical window techniques, including thinned-skull and optical clearing methods, using multiphoton microscopy and adaptive optics, revealing that progressive skull regrowth is the fundamental cause of declining imaging quality and resolution over time. To overcome this limitation, they developed a localized glucocorticoid delivery strategy, and further showed that a glucocorticoid-loaded hydrogel sealing method effectively suppresses skull regrowth while preserving optimal optical properties. Together, these findings provide mechanistic insight into window degradation and establish a practical framework for chronic, high-fidelity, long-term in vivo brain imaging. This is a tremendous achievement that will have a lasting impact on longitudinal in vivo neuroscience. Well done, and congratulations to the entire team!
