This amazing image of subarachnoid blood vessels won Matt MacGregor Sharp – a PhD student at the University of Southampton – a runner-up prize in last year's Reflections of Research image competition run by the British Heart Foundation.

The EM image_shows a normal artery at the surface of the brain in stunning detail._Sitting alongside the brown brain tissue, the artery appears blue, and its surrounding layer, the pia mater, is shown in purple._Macgregor's team are trying to show that failure to remove waste by these vessels is one of the underlying causes of vascular dementia._

This year's competition has just opened, head to https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/our-science-image-competition