Well, unfortunately it is pretty hard to get any CC0 pictures from optogenetic experiments.. And actually I am not sure what interesting would we see in such pictures haha.
But! I will probably work on optogenetic research myself in few months and thus will be able to provide real-life images and so.. :)
Wait, or are you refering to the fact that the images used in this article are not sourced? Well, that is because I created them.. :D And those that I did not are referenced.
I must confess this is the first time I am coming across such a concept and I find it very intriguing. Don't you think if this technology becomes available that bad governments could use it to control their citizens ?
I am glad that I could widen your scientific horizons, haha.
Well, If I were a supervillain, I would probably use such technology - but with some modifications. I would use light-sensitive proteins that respond to infrared light. Infrared light has higher penetrative capabilities so maybe that would be enough to activate the proteins without the necessity to actually drill hole to the skull. Next thing - the choice of neurons - I would probably use something that would paralyze the vicitim, like pain centre or balance centre or something like that. There is one major problem - how to deliver those genes of interests? Maybe use some virus or some modified mosquitoes or something.
But! I think that there far easier methods to achieve mind control than to use optogenetics.. Thus I thing that even though it has a potential to be weaponized or misused as every technology it will not happen. And humans would also probably develop some immune reaction to the foreign protein expression or so. And you would need some great external source of light - which is also a bit hard to achieve.
What I think might happen - we might be able to identify the workings of the brain to better understand them and thus cure variety of neurodegenerative diseases or depressions. Maybe we could be able to delete unpleasant memories or make you relieve some memories - if you think about it everything in our minds has to have physical basis - every memory, everything (of course only if there is no soul or something like that - which sadly probably is not). We could target and destroy cancer cells with light, we could activate some genes with the flick of a switch. Actually why being limited only to light - there are sonogenetics that use sound to control neurons, or other approaches that use radio waves.
Phew - I got carried away a bit :D But to summarize - I do not think that this technology is going to be actually misused. We have far more effective methods to control people - money, fear, upbringing, religion.
Hey,
I like this nice thorough post on optogenetics. I also worked with optogentics and behavioral testing on mice during my bachelors.
I've linked this to my most recent blogpost where I explore whether a neuroscientist could understand a microprocessor. Feel free to check it out :D
Hi @psyentist, I am glad that you enjoyed my article! :)
Great to have a fellow optogenetics fan here, haha and will take a look at your article, sounds interesting.
Btw, sorry for slow reply.
This is exactly what I've been looking for. Not a few sentences and a picture but real in-depth stuff. I will read the other articles in the series too. Thanks!
Haha, well yeah I tried to really create something that goes a bit deeper - even though it was really just a basic explanation (but hopefully understandable). I am happy to hear that you liked it. :)
And sorry that I reply only now to your comment.
Nice explanation! In section The Basic Steps you wrote that ion movement across the membrane causes membrane charge to change, while you probably meant membrane potential.
I have few questions:
Are there any efforts to improve spatial resolution of optical stimulation and would that simply mean using proteins that are activated by lower wavelength electromagnetic waves?
You wrote that driver gene coding for Cre recombinase is expressed only in certain cells. Can localization of gene expression for this enzyme be controlled?
What is the relation of this method to neuromodulation techniques like TMS in regards to probing and therapy? I saw papers in which the researchers described how they used optogenetics to establish how certain neural pathway responded to stimulation, and TMS for therapy.
I remember reading one of your posts on optogenetics a while back and loving it... but having more questions than I cared to ask. Thanks for clearing (most of) them up here! Look forwards to hearing more!
I am glad you liked it! :) In the future I would like to focus more on non-standard application of optogenetics aaand the next article will probably be about restoring sight in blind patients using optogenetics. Stay tuned, haha :D :)
Bring it on! I want more.
There are some typos: bellow" and "Conclussions"
So far it has been applied to control activity of neurons in vitro and also in vivo to understand how activity of certain neurons affects behaviour.
You many want to change this sentence as although optogenetics has mainly been used to control the activity of neurons, there are other light controlled proteins for genetic applications, for example killing specific cells with light and light controlled protein-protein interaction and cell signal transduction. There are others but you get the idea and maybe you could be described them in your future posts.
Cheers!
Love genetics!
ian
I actually did not read this one! :) Thanks for sharing.
Even though I had the chance to work both with CRISPR/Cas9 and optogenetics I never thought about combining them, haha :D
Once again, thanks!
You have put in great effort, my friend. Thank you for such a great job. I have a question for you. Have you worked with squid giant axon ? You have any photographs of it?
Thanks @dexterdev! I am glad that you enjoyed the article :)
Well, I never worked with squid giant axon, but I heard about it and its use in neurobiological research. The thing about conductance or transport of neuronal signal is the dependance of the conduction velocity on the diameter of axon - the higher the diameter the higher the conduction velocity.
No photo refs? :(
Well, unfortunately it is pretty hard to get any CC0 pictures from optogenetic experiments.. And actually I am not sure what interesting would we see in such pictures haha.
But! I will probably work on optogenetic research myself in few months and thus will be able to provide real-life images and so.. :)
Wait, or are you refering to the fact that the images used in this article are not sourced? Well, that is because I created them.. :D And those that I did not are referenced.
Well that's quite a good job, with those imgs.
I must confess this is the first time I am coming across such a concept and I find it very intriguing. Don't you think if this technology becomes available that bad governments could use it to control their citizens ?
I am glad that I could widen your scientific horizons, haha.
Well, If I were a supervillain, I would probably use such technology - but with some modifications. I would use light-sensitive proteins that respond to infrared light. Infrared light has higher penetrative capabilities so maybe that would be enough to activate the proteins without the necessity to actually drill hole to the skull. Next thing - the choice of neurons - I would probably use something that would paralyze the vicitim, like pain centre or balance centre or something like that. There is one major problem - how to deliver those genes of interests? Maybe use some virus or some modified mosquitoes or something.
But! I think that there far easier methods to achieve mind control than to use optogenetics.. Thus I thing that even though it has a potential to be weaponized or misused as every technology it will not happen. And humans would also probably develop some immune reaction to the foreign protein expression or so. And you would need some great external source of light - which is also a bit hard to achieve.
What I think might happen - we might be able to identify the workings of the brain to better understand them and thus cure variety of neurodegenerative diseases or depressions. Maybe we could be able to delete unpleasant memories or make you relieve some memories - if you think about it everything in our minds has to have physical basis - every memory, everything (of course only if there is no soul or something like that - which sadly probably is not). We could target and destroy cancer cells with light, we could activate some genes with the flick of a switch. Actually why being limited only to light - there are sonogenetics that use sound to control neurons, or other approaches that use radio waves.
Phew - I got carried away a bit :D But to summarize - I do not think that this technology is going to be actually misused. We have far more effective methods to control people - money, fear, upbringing, religion.
well I will take your word for it
This is a nice 'what if' or 'sci fi' addendum to the article.
Hey,
I like this nice thorough post on optogenetics. I also worked with optogentics and behavioral testing on mice during my bachelors.
I've linked this to my most recent blogpost where I explore whether a neuroscientist could understand a microprocessor. Feel free to check it out :D
Hi @psyentist, I am glad that you enjoyed my article! :)
Great to have a fellow optogenetics fan here, haha and will take a look at your article, sounds interesting.
Btw, sorry for slow reply.
This is exactly what I've been looking for. Not a few sentences and a picture but real in-depth stuff. I will read the other articles in the series too. Thanks!
Haha, well yeah I tried to really create something that goes a bit deeper - even though it was really just a basic explanation (but hopefully understandable). I am happy to hear that you liked it. :)
And sorry that I reply only now to your comment.
Nice explanation! In section The Basic Steps you wrote that ion movement across the membrane causes membrane charge to change, while you probably meant membrane potential.
I have few questions:
Are there any efforts to improve spatial resolution of optical stimulation and would that simply mean using proteins that are activated by lower wavelength electromagnetic waves?
You wrote that driver gene coding for Cre recombinase is expressed only in certain cells. Can localization of gene expression for this enzyme be controlled?
What is the relation of this method to neuromodulation techniques like TMS in regards to probing and therapy? I saw papers in which the researchers described how they used optogenetics to establish how certain neural pathway responded to stimulation, and TMS for therapy.
I remember reading one of your posts on optogenetics a while back and loving it... but having more questions than I cared to ask. Thanks for clearing (most of) them up here! Look forwards to hearing more!
I am glad you liked it! :) In the future I would like to focus more on non-standard application of optogenetics aaand the next article will probably be about restoring sight in blind patients using optogenetics. Stay tuned, haha :D :)
Always! :D
Bring it on! I want more.
There are some typos: bellow" and "Conclussions"
You many want to change this sentence as although optogenetics has mainly been used to control the activity of neurons, there are other light controlled proteins for genetic applications, for example killing specific cells with light and light controlled protein-protein interaction and cell signal transduction. There are others but you get the idea and maybe you could be described them in your future posts.
Cheers!
Love genetics!
ian
I am happy that you liked the article and thanks for those corrections - have to work on those double letters a bit, haha.
And thanks for the suggestions! Yes, I am aware about these kind of non-standard applications of optogenetics and actually already wrote a bit about them. For example the use of optogenetics to kill cancer cells, or activation of gene expression with light and even the application of optogenetics to control heart cells. But thanks for the links you provided- the papers look really interesting!
BTW, great feedback - I always love to hear what can be done better. :)
You have probably seen this one too but just in case: Photoactivatable CRISPR-Cas9 for optogenetic genome editing.. The combination of two very cool applications in science.
Cheers!
And good luck with your research!
I actually did not read this one! :) Thanks for sharing.
Even though I had the chance to work both with CRISPR/Cas9 and optogenetics I never thought about combining them, haha :D
Once again, thanks!
You have put in great effort, my friend. Thank you for such a great job. I have a question for you. Have you worked with squid giant axon ? You have any photographs of it?
Thanks @dexterdev! I am glad that you enjoyed the article :)
Well, I never worked with squid giant axon, but I heard about it and its use in neurobiological research. The thing about conductance or transport of neuronal signal is the dependance of the conduction velocity on the diameter of axon - the higher the diameter the higher the conduction velocity.