Optogenetics
The technique that switches neurons on and off with light, and what it has revealed about the brain.
La optogenética es una técnica biológica revolucionaria que combina la genética y la óptica para controlar neuronas y circuitos celulares específicos utilizando pulsos de luz en tiempo real.
For decades neuroscience could observe brain activity, but could not control one specific type of neuron without affecting its neighbours. Optogenetics solved this by combining genetics and optics: the chosen neurons are given the gene for a light-sensitive protein, discovered in algae, that works as a channel in the membrane.
When they are lit with a pulse of light, that channel opens and the neuron is switched on or silenced within milliseconds. This makes it possible to walk through brain circuits one by one and test what each does in memory, movement or mood. Today it is above all a research tool; its first uses in people, such as partial recovery of vision in some forms of blindness, are still experimental.
