Novel imaging tools for investigating the role of immune signalling in the brain

Highlights • Traditional imaging modalities employed to visualise and interpret neuroimmune signalling are inadequate. • Tissue clearing facilitates the 3-dimensional imaging of organs. • Nanoparticles have a superior luminescence signal, stability and reduces background noise compared to fluorophores and dyes. • MALDI is a novel method to determine the distribution, localisation and relative abundance of specific molecules within tissue. • Raman spectroscopy is a label-free, highly sensitive, technique that enables the identification of chemical species within a sample.