Optogenetic Technique

Unfortunately this link is dead now. I have not been able to locate a working link, unlike with the fourth link where I found a new link that works.

This is just one of those bad things with the web. When the information goes offline or is relocated, it's no longer accessible. However, I managed to find a cached version of the text.

Jean Cathie Research Fund Fellowship

Monday, 3 August 2015

Recently, Dr Yiwen Zheng was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship ($199,988) by the Jean Cathie Bequest/Auckland Medical Research Foundation to investigate the effects of time- and location-specific stimulation of GABAergic neurons on acoustic trauma-induced tinnitus in rats. Chronic tinnitus is a debilitating condition that significantly reduces the quality of life in individuals affected and presents a considerable socioeconomic impact to society. Its prevalence is expected to increase in the future due to increased risky music-listening behaviours in the younger generation. Dysfunction of a specific type of neuron in the brain, shown to be responsible for neuronal inhibition, has been linked to tinnitus generation. Dr Zheng will selectively stimulate these neurons using a novel optogenetic technique. This technology allows specific types of neurons to be labelled with light-sensitive proteins. These light-sensitive proteins are able to turn these neurons “on” when exposed to light at a specific wavelength and turn them “off” when the light is off, so that “specific” neurons at “specific” locations can be manipulated at “specific” times. Dr Zheng will then measure neurotransmitter release in different areas of the brain, before and after optogenetic stimulation of the GABAergic neurons located in different areas of the brain to determine their time- and location-specific role in tinnitus prevention and treatment using a rat model of acoustic trauma-induced tinnitus. The results will significantly improve the current understanding of the neurological basis of tinnitus and highlight optimal therapeutic targets for tinnitus treatment.

However, I have not been able to find any publication on this by Dr Zheng. The page may have been taken down for a good reason. Either way, I think this whole thing with controlling neurons with light is a fascinating development.

 

The Backman Institute released a video on optogenetics yesterday featuring professor Stephen Boppart.

Coherent Control: Using Light Pulses to Control Neurons

Coherent Control: Using Light Pulses to...

A blog post was published a few days earlier.

https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/5797722

So these are just a few of the research institutions working with this technology today: MIT, Backman Institute, University of Otago, and probably many, many more. This all looks very promising.