Intravitalis

Intravitalis is a Latin adjective meaning "in life" or "in living beings." In modern scientific usage, the English forms intravital and in vivo express a related sense, and intravitalis mainly appears in historical Latin texts or as part of formal nomenclature rather than in standard contemporary English.

The term denotes observations, procedures, or phenomena studied within a living organism, as opposed to in vitro (in glass) or ex vivo (outside the living body but in preserved tissue).

In practice, intravital approaches include intravital microscopy and intravital imaging, which visualize dynamic biological processes in real time inside living animals. Techniques involve surgical exposure of an organ with minimal perturbation, fluorescence labeling, and advanced microscopy such as multiphoton or confocal systems. Applications span vascular biology, immune cell trafficking, tumor biology, and organ physiology.

Ethical and methodological considerations are central to intravital work, requiring appropriate anesthesia and analgesia, animal welfare controls, and careful experimental design to account for motion, physiological variability, and potential tissue damage that could affect results.

See also: in vivo, in vitro, intravital microscopy, intravital staining.