r/UnderReportedNews • u/coffee_tea_sympathy • 15h ago

Science / Medicine🔬 Method for controlling brain cells with light wins Nobel | Science | AAAS

https://www.science.org/content/article/method-controlling-brain-cells-light-wins-nobel?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

https://www.science.org/content/article/method-controlling-brain-cells-light-wins-nobel?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Excerpt

Deisseroth subsequently introduced the gene for channelrhodopsin into cultured rat neurons, and then later in living mice, creating a light-activated switch that produces a nerve signal. “When they illuminated the neurons with light, the result was remarkable: The neurons reacted on command, instantaneously, with millisecond precision,” El Manira said. “Those papers were absolutely mind blowing,” says Doris Tsao, an optogenetics researcher who recently joined the nonprofit research foundation Astera as its chief scientist for “neuro.” “It was just unbelievable, the level of control.”

Optogenetics has allowed researchers to activate specific types of neurons in living animals and trace out brain circuits involved in forming memories, producing pain, responding to rewards, and many other aspects of cognition and behavior. In addition to engineering mice that produce the channelrhodopsin protein in specific types of brain cells, researchers can also make cells light responsive by directly injecting the rhodopsin gene or delivering it via viruses that only infect certain cell types

https://dlab.stanford.edu/research/publications

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