According to a study published by Cell Press on July 31 in the journal Cell, scientists are now able to fulfill a longtime goal of having see-through organs and bodies. This will enable researchers to more accurately visualize long-range connections between cells along with fine-grained cellular structures.

The study suggests that there are simple methods that allow for making opaque organs, bodies and human tissue biopsies transparent while maintaining the cellular structures and connections.

The protocols can help advance better understanding of brain-body interactions along with increasingly accurate clinical diagnoses and monitor diseases, as well as a new generation of therapies for health problems ranging from autism to chronic pain.

The study’s senior author, Viviana Gradinaru of the California Institute of Technology, said in a statement, “Although the idea of tissue clearing has been around for a century, to our knowledge, this is the first study to perform whole-body clearing, as opposed to first extracting and then clearing organs outside the adult body.” She continued, “Our methodology has the potential to accelerate any scientific endeavor that would benefit from whole-organism mapping, including the study of how peripheral nerves and organs can profoundly affect cognition and mental processing, and vice versa.”