Also in 2002, Ernst Bamberg, Georg Nagel, Peter Hegemann, and their colleagues published a paper reporting that they discovered an opsin that drives phototaxis, the movement in response to light, in green algae. They suggested that this protein, channelrhodopsin-2, would be useful to manipulate membrane potential, which essentially determines whether a neuron fires or not. These papers influenced the actions of the Deisseroth lab in the early 2000s (Boyden 2011). Amongst the researchers credited for
Applications of electrophysiology Introduction Electrophysiology is the study of electrical properties of tissues and cells. It is said to be the “gold standard”, when investigating neuronal signalling (Massimo Scanziani et Michael Häusser, 2009). Measurements are taken of the voltage change or the electrical current on an extensive variety of scales from a single ion channel protein (e.g. potassium channels) to large organs (e.g. the heart). There are many areas in which electrophysiology can be
Joslyn Babiera Mrs. Klock English 2 Honors, Period 2 8 April 2014 Optogenetics: Optimistic For A Cure When thinking of the word optogenetics, the word optimistic comes to mind, and that is exactly what optogenetics is. This new technology is optimistic to opening new doors to help save lives step by step, find cures, and a way for doctors to find underlying causes of life-threatening diseases. The idea was first brought up by Francis Crick, who also helped discover the double helix in DNA. “Crick’s
Francis Crick articulated that in order to better understand the brain, scientists would need to be able to control specific types of cells or individual neurons (Crick, 1979). He stated that if this was possible, researchers could activate a single neuron and watch the cascade of other neurons being activated. Or inhibit a neuron and observe what other cells around it followed. Crick continues and believed that this would someday be possible. His knowledge of the visual system, a system of the brain
Various clinical and psychological studies have shown that the hippocampus in the medial temporal lobe is responsible for important learning and memory. In the majority of studies, many researchers propose that the hippocampus is responsible for long-term memory (LTM). LTM impairments occur when damages to bilateral hippocampi are present and can result in anterograde amnesia (difficulty in forming recent memories), retrograde amnesia (difficulty in retrieving memories from the past), or both. However
I've always had complicated feelings about mental illnesses. It isn't necessarily something I would think about too much, but that the fact that I was lectured plenty of times on depression, ocd, bipolar disorder etc., but I was never taught on why it occurs. Why does people become such a different person? Most importantly, why does it occur? Mental illness is probably one of the most misunderstood illness, in terms of . At one time it was an illness that no one would dare talk about. It was an illness
Optogenetics With the advent of this new technology doctors and psychiatrists may have finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Well not exactly, but the state of the art new technology, Optogenetics, does offer an innovative new approach to the study of the brain, and, more importantly, the treatment of patients. The use of light had been surmised to be a valuable way to control cells many years prior by Francis Crick (Crick 2024), but no one had been able to pull all the pieces together