OPTOGENETICS

Objectives:

• We, doctors of the future, must seek the knowledge of modern medical fields

• Keeping pace with recent medical achievements is essential for a better future for our country.

Traditional Methods

• Neuroscientists traditionally study the function of the brain by stimulating and recording the activity of single nerve cells with electrodes.

The rise of the field

• The idea of using light to start or stop neurons in living animals was proposed some decades ago by the famous Nobel Prize–winning scientist, Francis Crick.

• The optogenetic method was pioneered in 2005 by Boyden and Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University.

What is Optogenetics?

• Optogenetics is an emerging field that combines optics and genetic engineering. It helps better understanding of the brain functions and even controlling it.

• “It paves the way for new therapies that could target a number of psychiatric disorders

What’s the idea?

• Viruses are engineered to infect neurons with a special type of channel, originally discovered in algae, which is sensitive to blue light. Once a blue laser shines on the infected neurons, the channels snap open, ions rush into the cell, and the neuron fires.

The advantage of the field

• The beauty of this optogenetic technique is its specificity

• The virus is only injected into a very small part of the brain, and only a certain class of neurons. The sharp laser beam further zeros in on a small portion of the brain.

• Drugs and electrodes have a much broader reach

• the technique has been used to control and explore neural circuits in fish, flies and rodents

Assumed future benefits of optogenetics

• Knowing what causes the brain of Alzheimer patients to fail.

• using light-emitting neural prosthetics to replace the electrodes used in deep brain stimulation, which currently activate or silence a broad range of neurons.

• treatment of Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and depression

Ethical issues

• would optogenetics be used for mind-altering drugs for personal recreation or for making criminals more compliant?

• Who would regulate the techniques and products made possible by optogenetics?

• These questions do not have easy answers and the more complex optogenetics becomes, the tougher the questions get.

References

• http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/lasercontrolledhumans/#more-4123

• http://www.laserfocusworld.com/display_article/367038/12/none/none/colum/A-healthy-futurefor-optogenetics

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