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Light-emitting molecules are potent tools for investigating brain function, but they are difficult to monitor at high resolution in deep tissue. To overcome this problem, our lab introduced a way to turn the brain itself into a form of camera that converts optical signals into local changes in blood flow that can be detected noninvasively by medical imaging methods. The key to accomplishing this is to use a genetic manipulation to sensitize blood vessels to light, enabling each vessel to act like a pixel in the brain-based camera. We showed that this approach, which we call “bioluminescence imaging using hemodynamics” (BLUsH), permits distributions of light-emitting cells to be mapped throughout the brain. We are now using BLUsH to measure patterns of neural connectivity and gene expression that change over time, underlying learning and memory, as well as processes involved in brain disorders.