The concept of optogenetics sounds almost too good to be true—making direct manipulation of brain activity literally as simple as turning on a light. But scientists have been using laser illumination ...

The first low-cost, easy-to-use optogenetics hardware platform will let biologists who have little or no training in engineering or software design incorporate optogenetics testing in their labs. The ...

When Edward Boyden was helping develop a tool to turn neurons on and off with light at Stanford a decade ago, he had a strong feeling it would spread far and wide. Even so, he’s been surprised by how ...

What the scientists had was a lab version of The Dog That Didn’t Bark — or, if Sherlock Holmes were chronicling the experiment, The Mice That Didn’t Freeze. One at a time, the 20 mice went into a ...

Please can you give an introduction to optogenetics? How was this technology inspired by psychiatry? Optogenetics is a way of introducing information into the brain using light, it targets specific ...

Nobody likes a cheater, but Rice University bioengineering graduate student Karl Gerhardt wants people to copy his answers. That's the whole point. Gerhardt and Rice colleagues have created the first ...

Optogenetics likes to light up debate. Optogenetics is a hot technique in neuroscience research right now, involving taking a light-activited gene (called a channel rhodopsin) targeted into a single ...

The first time I learned that scientists could control neurons with light, I definitely did not keep my cool. My response was something like, “Holy shit, I had no idea you could do that!”—perhaps not ...

University of Rochester researchers have demonstrated a noninvasive method using BL-OG, or bioluminescent optogenetics, that harnesses light to activate neurons in the brain. The ability to regulate ...

Researchers lighten the load and increase the channels for multi-site optogenetics. Now over a decade old, the field of optogenetics continues to play an important role in understanding neural ...

Optogenetics has ignited a revolution in neuroscience. Although this decree may sound like hype, researchers in the field disagree, saying the technique is allowing them to understand brain function ...

An irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, leads to inefficient pumping of blood by the heart, which then prevents blood and ...