Above is a link to an extended article (also a web exclusive) written by Karl Deisseroth for Scientific American in 2010- a highly recommended read. So who exactly is Karl Deisseroth? In the neuroscience community, he is most well-known for creating, developing and disseminating optogenetics- the combination genetics and optics to control specific and well-defined neural evens in specific cells of living tissues. What is most exciting about this technology is that it enables scientists to control and manipulate defined events, in defined cell types, with incredible temporal resolution (think specificity like neuroscientists had never seen before!). This discovery has outstanding implications for the study of normal neural circuit function as well as dysfunction in cases of neurological and psychiatric disease.
Last year (2011), the Deisseroth lab published a review titled The Development and Application of Optogenetics in the Annual Review of Neuroscience. If you have journal or PubMed access- do it!
Optogenetics diagram taken from this other neuroscience blog post.
-
sheepships likes this
-
cerebellumagic reblogged this from houseofmind
-
cerebellumagic likes this
-
houseofmind posted this
