Overview

• CONICET/BIOMED researchers report the first direct visualization of a membrane neurotransmitter receptor interacting with cholesterol in living cells.
• Using MINFLUX super‑resolution microscopy coupled with AI, the team refined images, tracked receptor dynamics, and mapped nanoscale organization.
• The analysis pipeline combined deep learning, a graph neural network to detect nanoaggregates without manual input, and a temporal‑convolution model (WadTCN) to segment trajectories.
• The studies document real‑time mobility, anomalous diffusion patterns, and supramolecular aggregation of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor.
• The group, led by Dr. Francisco Barrantes with UCA collaborators Lucas Saavedra and Héctor Buena‑Maizón, says the approach could illuminate early changes linked to myasthenia gravis and is being extended to Alzheimer’s research.