{
  "id": 18301022,
  "title": "ClearGel: a thermoresponsive hydrogel for chronic, near-millimeter two-photon imaging through the intact skull",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/05/cleargel-a-thermoresponsive-hydrogel-for-chronic-near-millimeter-two",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.04.764111v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Existing skull-clearing techniques struggle to provide high-resolution two-photon neuroimaging in live mice through the intact skull. These methods fail to offer deep cortical access, spatial selectivity, reversibility, and biological safety simultaneously. In this study, ClearGel, a thermoresponsive hydrogel, is introduced. ClearGel rapidly gels in situ upon contact with the skull, confining the clearing agents to the targeted region while maintaining their release over time. This innovative gel routinely enables two-photon imaging down to about 800 micrometers through the intact skull, a depth comparable to open-skull windows and far beyond previous approaches. ClearGel offers user-defined clearing patterns, ranging from focal sites to whole-skull coverage. It allows for repeated imaging over 14 days through a reversible optical interface, and importantly, it enables awake functional imaging of both neuronal Ca2+ activity and cAMP dynamics at single-cell resolution. The application of ClearGel is simple, requiring only topical administration without the need for craniotomy or skull thinning. This minimally invasive method provides a chronic-compatible optical window, paving the way for longitudinal studies of cortical function in behaving mice.",
  "summary": "The intact skull remains a fundamental barrier to high-resolution two-photon neuroimaging in live mice. Existing skull-clearing methods, however, cannot simultaneously provide deep cortical access, spatial selectivity, reversibility, and biological safety. Here we introduce ClearGel, a thermoresponsive hydrogel that undergoes rapid in situ gelation upon contact with the skull, confining the…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}