Fluorescent Protein, Tiny Microscope Reads The Minds Of Mice
Tuesday, February 19, 2013 - 18:10
in Biology & Nature
Can you read minds? No, you cannot, but with some fluorescent protein and a tiny microscope implanted in a rodent's head, Stanford scientists have come close. Their technique can observe hundreds of neurons firing in the brain of a live mouse, in real time, and they have linked that activity to long-term information storage. The researchers first used a gene therapy approach to cause the mouse's neurons to express a green fluorescent protein that was engineered to be sensitive to the presence of calcium ions. When a neuron fires, the cell naturally floods with calcium ions. Calcium stimulates the protein, causing the entire cell to fluoresce bright green. read more