Illuminating the mind: Optogenetics and the work of Gero Miesenböck
Optogenetics reveals the choreography behind the brain’s behavior and thought processes. Like a remote control, but without the buttons, it uses light to precisely control the activity of neurons in the brain with high spatial and temporal precision.
Optogenetics uses beams of light to switch neurons on or off. This happens after scientists genetically engineer cells to be like tiny light bulbs.
Pioneering this technique in 2002, Gero Miesenböck was the first scientist to successfully modify these nerve cells in a way that allowed their electrical activity to be controlled using light. Speaking to Interesting Engineering (IE), he acknowledged that his contributions are significant but humbly accepted that he isn’t all that famous for it.
Because the technology he devised could potentially allow humans to remote control a brain, there is a possibility that it could be misused. Nonchalantly shrugging off risks, he told IE, “I think the potential for serious misuse is at the moment limited because we do not understand the normal function of the brain well enough to really interfere with somebody’s cognition in any rational way.”
Any conversation around monitoring human brain activity is contextually incomplete without discussing Elon Musk’s Neuralink, but Professor Miesenböck politely declined to comment on the technology.
Miesenböck is currently the Waynflete Professor of Physiology, Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of Magdalen College.
Applications of optogenetics are limited
Since his discovery, optogenetics has been explored and applied by scientists in pain therapy, behavioral science, and questions around neurological diseases. But Professor Miesenböck acknowledged that the most promising current applications of optogenetics are in the treatment of blindness, where the technique is applied in the eye rather than the brain.
Like in the initial stages of every technology developed in the world, there is little success in the beginning. The same was the case with optogenetics. Miesenböck noted that all current technologies in optogenetics are still based on the original concept. They are essentially permutations or derivatives of the initial idea.
Though Professor Miesenböck has called for greater collaboration between theoretical frameworks and experimental investigations, he is not particularly anticipating many groundbreaking developments in the future. Still, he acknowledges that there will likely be ongoing improvements.
He relays that the primary focus now should be on “poking around and seeing what happens.”
Discussing the current challenges of using optogenetics, Professor Miesenböck suggests that the treatment possibilities, particularly for conditions like depression or schizophrenia, may have been oversold. This limited understanding of brain function is a fundamental challenge, as a lack of understanding hampers the ability to make rational interventions.
Miesenböck was recently awarded the 2022 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, along with two other colleagues – Karl Deisseroth and Peter Hegemann – for his research that laid the foundation of optogenetics.
In 2002, Miesenböck’s team pulled off a genetic feat by sneaking genes from fruit fly eyes into rat nerve cells in a dish. This clever move marked the first time scientists saw that shining a light on these tweaked neurons could make them shoot out electrical signals.
Fast forward a few years, and Miesenböck’s crew has taken things up a notch. They stuck light-sensitive ion channels deep into the brains of live fruit flies, proving that this technique, known as optogenetics, works in living creatures, too.
Source: Interesting Engineering
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Illuminating the mind: Optogenetics and the work of Gero Miesenböck