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How (not) to silence long-range projections with light

Nature Neuroscience volume 19, pages 527–528 (2016)Cite this article

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Inhibitory optogenetic tools prevent action potential generation during illumination. A study explores the possibility of squelching already propagating action potentials locally at axon terminals before they trigger neurotransmitter release.

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Figure 1: Optogenetic inhibition works well at the soma but can have unexpected effects when presynaptic terminals are illuminated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. J. Simon Wiegert and Thomas G. Oertner are at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg (ZMNH), Hamburg, Germany.,

    J Simon Wiegert & Thomas G Oertner

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  1. J Simon Wiegert
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  2. Thomas G Oertner
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Correspondence to Thomas G Oertner.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Wiegert, J., Oertner, T. How (not) to silence long-range projections with light. Nat Neurosci 19, 527–528 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4270

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