Silencing the brain with light

Friday, January 8, 2010 - 10:42 in Biology & Nature

Giving epilepsy patients an electric jolt to shut off out-of-control neuron firing during seizures is being explored as a way to treat the chronic brain disorder. New research from MIT now raises the possibility of silencing those seizures with light instead of electricity. A team led by neuroengineer Edward Boyden has found a class of proteins that, when inserted into neurons, allow them to be turned off with rays of yellow-green light. The silencing is near instantaneous and easily reversible.This kind of selective brain silencing, reported in the Jan. 7 issue of Nature, could not only help treat brain disorders but also allows researchers to investigate the role of different types of neurons in normal brain circuits and how those circuits can go wrong.“We hope to enable a broad platform of molecular tools for controlling brain activity, thus enabling new general therapeutic tools, and new ways of studying brain function,”...

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