2. Cerebrovascular imaging devices using two-photon microscopy

2.1 Two-photon microscope

As mentioned above, one of the most relevant devices for intravital microscopy is the two-photon microscope. In biomedical research and preclinical animal studies, this microscope consists of an upright stand, a pulsed infrared (IR) laser source and an IR-optimized scanner (figure 2 ). Unlike its confocal counterpart, the biphotonic nature of the excitation means that a pin-hole diaphragm is not required to select the fluorescence emitted at the focal plane of the objective. The five main manufacturers of multiphoton microscopes are Zeiss (LSM 7MP), Olympus (Fluoview ®), Nikon (A1R MP), Leica (TCS MP5, TCS SP8 MP) and LaVision BioTec...