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A 3-D Light Switch for the Brain

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 19, 2012 — A new tool that delivers precise points of light to living brain tissue in three dimensions could one day help treat Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy; it could even aid in the understanding of consciousness and how memories form. Biologists and engineers at MIT developed the three-dimensional “light switch” using a technique that manipulates neurons with light, known as optogenetics. The method, only a few years old, sensitizes select brain cells to a particular color of light. By illuminating precise areas of the brain, scientists can selectively activate or...Read full article

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    Published: November 2012
    Glossary
    optogenetics
    A discipline that combines optics and genetics to enable the use of light to stimulate and control cells in living tissue, typically neurons, which have been genetically modified to respond to light. Only the cells that have been modified to include light-sensitive proteins will be under control of the light. The ability to selectively target cells gives researchers precise control. Using light to control the excitation, inhibition and signaling pathways of specific cells or groups of...
    photonics
    The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...
    probe
    Acronym for profile resolution obtained by excitation. In its simplest form, probe involves the overlap of two counter-propagating laser pulses of appropriate wavelength, such that one pulse selectively populates a given excited state of the species of interest while the other measures the increase in absorption due to the increase in the degree of excitation.
    3-D light switchAmericasBiophotonicsbrain tissueEd Boydenepilepsygene therapyindividual neuronsMassachusettsmemory formationMicroscopyMITneural prosthesesneuron sensitizationneuronsopsinoptogeneticsParkinson’s diseasephotonicsprobeResearch & Technologyseizures

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