DUAL FIBER-OPTIC CANNULA0 pages

Optogenetics catalog 7.5 - Fiber-optic Cannula

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Fiber-optic Cannula
A fluid cannula is an assembly of a metal tube and a
fluid tube receptacle, used for administering fluids when
metal tube is inserted into the body. A venous cannula
is inserted into a vein to obtain blood samples or to
deliver medicines. The body of a cannula has a form
that easily connects to or disconnects from the plastic
tubing. The plastic tubing can be disconnected while
the cannula remains attached to the body surface with
the hollow needle (tube) inserted into the body for the
later use. Similar to those fluid cannulas, biomedical
and optogenetics applications need fiber-optic cannulas
to introduce the laser or LED light into the body tissue. Mono fiber-optic
cannula
As an example, illuminating the neurons within the
Rectangular
mouse brain with the blue or orange light has become
magnetic
an essential tool for studying the processes within
genetically modified photosensitive neurons. In
early days of optogenetics, researchers used a fluid
cannula to insert the optical fibers into the brain
tissue, where the metal tube was guiding the fiber
to the neurons. After the experiment, the optical
fiber was removed from the cannula only to be
reinserted later. The optical fiber removal and reentry could lead to infections and clogging of the
fluid cannula.
With some exceptions, the fiber-optic cannula is
typically used without the metal tube of the fluid
cannula. It consists of a fiber-optic ferrule with some
sort of fiber-optic receptacle on one side and the
implantable fiber protruding from the other side.
When the fiber-optic cannula is fixed to the body
Optic & Fluid Cannula - and the fiber implanted, the light can be delivered to
the tissue and the fluorescence or scatter from the
M3
tissue can be captured. In these experiments, it is
imperative that the connection between the delivery fiber and the cannula
is light, small and simple to connect and disconnect. For a mono fiber
delivery, the connection between the ferrules of the light delivery fiber
patch cord and the fiber-optic cannula is achieved, in its simplest form, via