Device delivers light signals deep into the brain

The researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, developed devices, containing light emitting diodes (LEDs) the size of individual neurons. The devices, reported in Science, activate brain cells with light.

‘This strategy should allow us to identify and map brain circuits involved in complex behaviours related to sleep, depression, addiction and anxiety,’ said co-principal investigator Michael R. Bruchas, PhD, assistant professor of anaesthesiology at Washington University. ‘Understanding which populations of neurons are involved in these complex behaviours may allow us to target specific brain cells that malfunction in depression, pain, addiction and other disorders.’

For the study, Washington University neuroscientists teamed with engineers at the University of Illinois to design microscale (LED) devices thinner than a human hair.

According to a statement, this was the first application of the devices in optogenetics, an area of neuroscience that uses light to stimulate targeted pathways in the brain. The scientists implanted them into the brains of mice that had been genetically engineered so that some of their brain cells could be activated and controlled with light.