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Neuroscience

Optical control of reward

Is it wishful thinking that the behaviour of an organism as complex as a mouse might be controlled by modulating its intracellular signalling with light? No: this is just what researchers have achieved with an elegant technique.

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Figure 1: Light stimulation, intracellular signalling and regulation of function in neural networks.

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Moorman, D., Aston-Jones, G. Optical control of reward. Nature 458, 980–981 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/458980a

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