Infrared light excites cells by changing their electrical capacitance
By Mikhail G. Shapiro, K. Homma, Sebastian Villarreal, C. Richter, F. Bezanilla. Nature Communications, 2012
604 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Optical stimulation has enabled important advances in the study of brain function and other biological processes, and holds promise for medical applications ranging from hearing restoration to cardiac pace making. In particular, pulsed laser stimulation using infrared wavelengths >1.5 μm has therapeutic potential based on its ability to directly stimulate nerves and muscles without any genetic or chemical pre-treatment. However, the mechanism of infrared stimulation has been a mystery, hindering its path to the clinic. Here we show that infrared light excites cells through a novel, highly general electrostatic mechanism. Infrared pulses are absorbed by water, producing a rapid local increase in temperature. This heating reversibly alters the electrical capacitance of the plasma membrane, depolarizing the target cell. This mechanism is fully reversible and requires only the most basic properties of cell membranes. Our findings underscore the generality of pulsed infrared stimulation and its medical potential. Pulsed infrared laser light can directly stimulate nerves and muscles, but the underlying biophysical mechanism has remained enigmatic. This study reveals that infrared pulses depolarize target cells by reversibly altering the electrical capacitance of the plasma membrane.
Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ae314aaa8f099a5027ef1bf023ecac3f25e8f3c7
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Citations in the corpus
- Thermal transients excite neurons through universal intramembrane mechano-electrical effects (2017, methodology): “…mobile, fixed charges and the potentials that fall on each membrane region are determined by electrostatic Boltzmann equations in the bulk, while in the hydrophobic core and Stern layers these relations are determined through the assumption of zero density of free charges 16,33,34 (see Methods).”