Quote:Scientists Found a New Way to Control the Brain With Light—No Surgery Required

If I had to place money on a neurotech that will win the Nobel Prize, it’s optogenetics.

The technology uses light of different frequencies to control the brain. It’s a brilliant mind-meld of basic neurobiology and engineering that hijacks the mechanism behind how neurons naturally activate—or are silenced—in the brain.

Thanks to optogenetics, in just ten years we’ve been able to artificially incept memories in mice, decipher brain signals that lead to pain, untangle the neural code for addiction, reverse depression, restore rudimentary sight in blinded mice, and overwrite terrible memories with happy ones. Optogenetics is akin to a universal programming language for the brain.

But it’s got two serious downfalls: it requires gene therapy, and it needs brain surgery to implant optical fibers into the brain.

This week, the original mind behind optogenetics is back with an update that cuts the cord. Dr. Karl Deisseroth’s team at Stanford University, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, unveiled an upgraded version of optogenetics that controls behavior without the need for surgery. Rather, the system shines light through the skulls of mice, and it penetrates deep into the brain. With light pulses, the team was able to change how likely a mouse was to have seizures, or reprogram its brain so it preferred social company.

To be clear: we’re far off from scientists controlling your brain with flashlights. The key to optogenetics is genetic engineering—without it, neurons (including yours) don’t naturally respond to light.

However, looking ahead, the study is a sure-footed step towards transforming a powerful research technology into a clinical therapy that could potentially help people with neurological problems, such as depression or epilepsy. We are still far from that vision—but the study suggests it’s science fiction potentially within reach.

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Using viruses, scientists can add a gene for opsins, a special family of proteins from algae, into living neurons. Opsins are specialized “doors” that open under certain frequencies of light pulses, something mammalian brain cells can’t do. Adding opsins into mouse neurons (or ours) essentially gives them the superpower to respond to light. In classic optogenetics, scientists implant optical fibers near opsin-dotted neurons to deliver the light stimulation. Computer-programmed light pulses can then target these newly light-sensitive neurons in a particular region of the brain and control their activity like puppets on a string.

It gets cooler. Using genetic engineering, scientists can also fine-tune which populations of neurons get that extra power—for example, only those that encode a recent memory, or those involved in depression or epilepsy. This makes it possible to play with those neural circuits using light, while the rest of the brain hums along.

This selectivity is partially why optogenetics is so powerful. But it’s not all ponies and rainbows. As you can imagine, mice don’t particularly enjoy being tethered by optical fibers sprouting from their brains. Humans don’t either, hence the hiccup in adopting the tool for clinical use. Since its introduction, a main goal for next-generation optogenetics has been to cut the cord.

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But for unraveling the inner workings of the brain, it’s an amazing leap into the future. So far, efforts at cutting the optical cord for optogenetics have come with the knee-capped ability to go deep into the brain, limiting control to only surface brain regions such as the cortex. Other methods overheat sensitive brain tissue and culminate in damage. Yet others act as 1990s DOS systems, with significant delay between a command (activate!) and the neuron’s response.

This brain-control OS, though not yet perfect, resolves those problems. Unlike Neuralink and other neural implants, the study suggests it’s possible to control the brain without surgery or implants. All you need is light.

Singularity hub

(06-12-2023, 03:57 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: But, wait, there's more...


The Journal of Neuroscience


Optogenetics Guide



Researchers Achieve Mind Control Using Only Light


Dunno where I'm going with all this, but...

(06-12-2023, 01:22 PM)quintessentone Wrote: Those two serious flaws mentioned (gene therapy and an implant) sort of categorizes it within the fiction genre, am I right?