Research from Viviana Gradinaru, Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, is cited in this article about dLight1, a dopamine sensor developed by Lin Tian and her team at UC Davis Health, which detects this hormone which is released by neurons to send signals to other nerve cells. When combined with advanced microscopy, the sensors provide high-resolution, real-time imaging of the spatial and temporal release of dopamine in live animals. Tian recently succeeded in expanding the color spectrum of the dLight1 sensor which means researchers will be able to detect and monitor different information processing activities in the brain.