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 ...

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 ...

Scientists at Scripps Research Institute have created a groundbreaking method to track when brain cell activity decreases or switches off after a burst of activity using a combination of optogenetics ...

Researchers have demonstrated that specific groups of neurons, known as neuronal ensembles, have a causal role in behavior. The researchers used new optical and analytical tools to identify cortical ...

Optogenetics uses light to control neurons that have been made artificially sensitive to illumination. In the lab, scientists employ viruses to introduce genes for light-sensitive proteins into ...

A technique called optogenetics has transformed neuroscience during the past 10 years by allowing researchers to turn specific neurons on and off in experimental animals. By flipping these neural ...

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Optogenetics is a technique using a combination of optical and genetic methods. Optogenetic tools are targetable, genetically encoded proteins that enable the use of light to either report or control ...