Optogenetic tools for analyzing the neural circuits of behavior
By Jacob G. Bernstein, Ed Boyden. 2011
274 citations recorded by the source corpus.
In order to understand how the brain generates behaviors, it is important to be able to determine how neural circuits work together to perform computations. Because neural circuits are made of a great diversity of cell types, it is critical to be able to analyze how these different kinds of cells work together. In recent years, a toolbox of fully genetically encoded molecules has emerged that, when expressed in specific neurons, enables the electrical activity of the targeted neurons to be controlled in a temporally precise fashion by pulses of light. We describe this optogenetic toolbox, how it can be used to analyze neural circuits in the brain, and how optogenetics is impacting the study of cognition.
Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
In Cognitive Neuroscience
In Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
Citations in the corpus
- Labelling and optical erasure of synaptic memory traces in the motor cortex (2015, background): “(1) A little somatic translation: the moderate gene expression of AS-PaRac1, by which the Hayashi-Takagi et al.”
- Neural networks and neuroscience-inspired computer vision. (2014, background): “We can directly measure the connectivity between identified cells, and genetic tools give us unprecedented cell-type-specific access to neuronal networks, with the ability to measure, stimulate, and silence cells with exquisite precision [56,57].”
- Multi-electrode array technologies for neuroscience and cardiology. (2013, methodology): “This was followed by very powerful methods to optically excite or inhibit individual neurons or neuronal ensembles 32,33 .”