In the September Nature Neuroscience, we have a promising new technique: Millisecond-timescale, genetically targeted optical control of neural activity.
I think several people have suggested doing something like this before but no one has actually done it. What they’ve done is genetically modified (by lentivirus, for those curious) ordinary hippocampal neurons in culture, adding the same photo-electric transducing protein — rhodopsin — found in photoreceptors. Yup. You heard me right. They’ve expressed a cation-channel-gating rhodopsin in ordinary hippocampal neurons. With an standard fluorescence microscope (Xenon lamp + Chroma GFP cube), they can photostimulate single action potentials (and sub-threshold depolarizations) in single neurons.
Now here’s my idea for bioengineers to take this to the next level: Add a second photosensitive protein tied to an inhibitory channel. Ideally, we would want total separation between the stimulating wavelengths for the two different (excitatory, inhibitory) channels. Now, you have a system where all neurons can be directly excited or inhibited with different laser lines. In other words, a network of neurons where all voltages can be fully controlled. Sweet!
This seems like a great tool to add to the existing arsenal of photostimulation techniques (like photoelectric effect-based light-on-silicon stimulation that was pioneered by Goda lab.) Here’s a question: Is this the end of multi-electrode arrays? In slice, we already have single spike detection with Ca-sensitive dyes from Yuste’s lab. Now, we have optical single spike stimulation. Perhaps MEAs will be relegated to the domain implantable devices. Regardless, I’m proud to see several of the authors are from Stanford! Read on for the full abstract. Continue reading
neurodudes 