Optical techniques for the recording and manipulation of neural activity in-vivo
- Submission status
- Closed
- Submission deadline
Optical methods have revolutionised the experimental measurement and control of neuronal populations. In optogenetics, the expression of light-activated opsin channels in cells enables investigators to initiate specific cellular events through the application of light as a precise activating signal. This allows us to understand the basic functioning of cells and neuronal pathways at a higher spatial and temporal resolution than before. In parallel, related optical methods have emerged that endow us with the ability to measure changes in cell activation through the release of fluorescent markers. These techniques afford either bulk or single-cell calcium imaging of neural activity with high temporal and spatial resolution in behaving animals.
Since the first exploration of optical techniques in the early 2000s, the experimental tools and methods have been repeatedly refined. Indeed, it has become more and more common that both recording and manipulation of neural activity using these techniques is performed within the same animal, providing a level of control and observation of neurons in a way we have never experienced. This Collection aims to gather research using the latest optical techniques in neuroscience, and what we've learned from their application.
Editors
-
Robert Krencik
Houston Methodist Hospital, USA
-
Talia Lerner
Feinberg School of Medicine - Northwestern University, USA
-
Xuelin Lou
Medical College of Wisconsin, USA
-
Melissa Sharpe
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
-
Hiromu Yawo
The University of Tokyo, Japan
Robert Krencik is an Assistant Professor at Houston Methodist department of Neurosurgery and Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr Krencik trained as a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison and as a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, San Francisco. His studies focused on investigating human pluripotent stem cell derived astrocytes as disease models. Currently he utilizes bioengineered neural organoids to elucidate mechanisms of neuroregeneration. Dr Krencik has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2019.
Talia Lerner is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Her lab studies the neural circuit basis of motivation, reward learning, and habit formation using a variety of techniques including optogenetics, fiber photometry, and electrophysiology. She is particularly interested in how individual variations in dopamine circuit function relate to differences in behavior and neuropsychiatric disease risk. Dr. Lerner earned her BS in Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry from Yale University and her PhD in Neuroscience from UCSF, and completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University. Dr Lerner joined Scientific Reports as an Editorial Board Member in 2021.
Xuelin Lou is an Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Neurobiology, and Director of the Advanced Cell Imaging Core at the Medical College of Wisconsin. His group studies intracellular trafficking associated with neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes, utilizing multiple state of the art technologies such as optogenetics, live-cell imaging (Confocal/TIRF), PALM/d-STORM, and mouse models. Dr Lou has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2019.
Melissa Sharpe is a Principal Investigator in the UCLA Department of Psychology. Following completion of her graduate studies in 2015 at the University of New South Wales in Australia, Dr Sharpe moved to the United States to pursue postdoctoral training with Geoff Schoenbaum at NIDA-IRP and Yael Niv at Princeton Neuroscience Institute. Here, she combined her interests in reinforcement learning with techniques that would allow her to test very specific questions about the neural circuits involved in associative learning. Sharpe Lab is interested in continuing to probe the neural circuits involved in specific aspects of cognition, and how we might use this information to develop reinforcement-learning models of psychopathology. To do this, the Sharpe lab uses a modern suite of cutting-edge approaches, including optogenetics, fiber photometry, and chemogenetics in awake behaving (and learning) animals. Recent investments from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are supporting their research. Dr Sharpe has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2019.
Hiromu Yawo is a Researcher at the Institute for Solid State Physics, part of the University of Tokyo. For the past 15 years Dr Yawo has promoted optogenetics from its earliest stage in three directions; the optimization of molecular tools, the development of model animals and the neuroscience researches using optogenetics. He is also one of the editors of two books on optogenetics (2015 and 2021) published with Springer. Dr Yawo has been an Editorial Board Member for Scientific Reports since 2017.
