With support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s special project "Music Intelligence Quantification and Brain Science Research" (Grant No.: T2341003), Professor Kexin Yuan and his team at the School of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, have achieved a breakthrough in three-dimensional imaging of "glassy" tissue organization. Their research, titled "VIVIT: Resolving trans-scale volumetric biological architectures via ionic glassy tissue," was published in Cell on October 16, 2025 (https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(25)00813-X).

Establishing an integrated, high-fidelity, and high-resolution neuronal connectome is fundamental to addressing scientific questions such as "How does the brain express fundamental elements of music?" and "What are the mechanisms underlying the brain’s response to music at the molecular, cellular, and neural circuit levels?" Given the face that massive imaging workloads, enormous datasets, and the challenges of image stitching, there is an urgent need for breakthroughs in high-precision imaging of brain tissue structures. The research team developed a cross-scale volumetric biological structure imaging technology based on glassy-state ionic liquid solvents—VIVIT. This technique enables precise tracking of axonal fibers in thick tissue sections, allowing simultaneous analysis of microscopic synaptic inputs and macroscopic whole-brain outputs at the single-neuron level. This approach provides a solution for cross-scale exploration of brain connectivity.

Utilizing the VIVIT technology, the team revealed the synaptic input and whole-brain output connectivity patterns of higher-order auditory neurons in the mouse thalamus. This provides technical support for uncovering the multisensory perception mechanisms of music and the neural coding mechanisms of musical elements.

Figure. VIVIT: Transparent 3D Reconstruction of Brain Tissue