Today is Alzheimer’s Day. What does photonics have to do with medicine, specifically neurodegradative diseases such as Alzheimer’s? The answer is simple: photonics provides medical technologies that are useful in diagnosing and treating diseases.

Our researchers, along with scientists from other distinguished Polish institutions, have developed an innovative fiber imaging bundle. It takes the form of a flexible optical fiber consisting of almost 1,000 cores, each of which is a separate image pixel. The glass from which the fiber imaging bundle was made was also developed in the laboratories of our Institute.

Our fiber imaging bundle is used to monitor the activity of neurons – just animals at the moment, even when in motion. However, in the future, this device will be used to examine people, thanks to which we will learn more about neurodegenerative processes accompanying, among others, Alzheimer’s disease.