Prof. Mikko Juusola from the University of Sheffield, UK will held a talk about „Synaptic high-frequency jumping“ during the MBExC Lecture on 11 May, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. at the MPI-NAT City Campus, lecture hall, Hermann-Rein-Str. 3.

Host: Prof. Dr. Martin Göpfert, Uni Göttingen

Abstract: For centuries, from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia to the ideas of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Exner, insect compound eyes have been viewed as fundamentally limited by their fixed, faceted structure – producing a coarse, pixel-like representation of the world. Our new work challenges this long-standing assumption. We show that insect vision is not static but dynamically shaped by movement: both the animal’s rapid, saccadic turns and microscopic movements within the eye itself actively enhance what is seen.

When insects move, their eyes do not simply record images – they actively sample the world in bursts. These rapid shifts, combined with the physics of light detection in thousands of tiny photoreceptive units, generate especially strong and precisely timed signals. At the first synapse in the visual system, this leads to a striking effect we term synaptic high-frequency jumping: the neural signal is reshaped to carry much faster fluctuations than previously thought possible, effectively boosting temporal resolution while minimising delay. In essence, motion transforms the visual system into a high-speed encoder.

This mechanism explains how insects achieve hyperacute vision – resolving fine detail far beyond what their eye structure alone would predict – while reacting in just milliseconds during flight. More broadly, the findings point to a new principle of neural computation: perception emerges from tightly coupled dynamics between behaviour and neural processing. Rather than passively filtering inputs, the brain actively structures them in time, suggesting new ways to think about both biological and artificial vision.

Poster of the talk:

Host: Jörg Enderlein (U GOE), MBExC
Local organizer: Alexander Egner (IFNANO)

Speaker: Thomas Burg, TU Darmstadt
Microsystems for cryo-CLEM

Abstract:
Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM) is a powerful tool for investigating the connections between cellular structure and function. Performing CLEM on vitrified cells at cryogenic temperature (cryo-CLEM) is particularly interesting, as sub-cellular structures can be preserved very close to the native state and radiation damage is significantly reduced. However, cryo-CLEM technology still has several important limitations today. First, conventional cryofixation by high-pressure freezing or plunge freezing interrupts live-cell imaging, as it requires sample preparation and transfer between instruments. Second, only air objectives are available in cryogenic light microscopy, limiting the numerical aperture to less than one. To overcome the first limitation, our group has introduced a microsystems-based cryofixation technology that enables cryofixation of thin samples (< 20 µm) within fully operating microfluidic devices directly in the light microscope. Recently, we have been investigating applications of this approach to studies of cell biomechanics and cryopreservation. To address the second limitation, we designed a new type of light microscope and cryo-immersion objectives. I will describe recent advances towards integrating this technology into a new immersion-based correlative light and electron microscopy workflow and enabling cryo-STED microscopy with immersion objectives. We expect that, together, microfluidic cryofixation and immersion-based cryo-CLEM will be of particular interest for studying dynamic relationships between cell stimulation, function, and structure at the nanometer scale.   Please find here the PDF of the announcement:

MBExC Closing Symposium „Bioimaging Across Scales“

Date: Monday, 28th September 2026 and Tuesday, 29th September 2026

Location: Alte Mensa, Wilhelmsplatz, Göttingen

Organizer: MBExC