brain optogenetics neurotechnology Parkinson's
neurophilosophy | March 24, 2009Optogenetics is a newly developed technique based on a group of light-sensitive proteins called channelrhodopsins, which were isolated recently from various species of micro-organism. Although relatively new, this technique has already proven to be extremely powerful, because channelrhodopsins can be targeted to specific cells, so that their activity can be controlled by light, on a millisecond-by-millisecond timescale.
A group of researchers from Stanford University now report a new addition to the optogenetic toolkit, and demonstrate that it can be used to precisely control biochemical…