A high-light sensitivity optical neural silencer: development and application to optogenetic control of non-human primate cortex

Xue Han, Brian Y Chow, Huihui Zhou, Nathan C Klapoetke, Amy Chuong, Reza Rajimehr, Aimei Yang, Michael V Baratta, Jonathan Winkle, Robert Desimone, Edward S Boyden. Frontiers in systems neuroscience, Aug 2011.

Abstract

Technologies for silencing the electrical activity of genetically targeted neurons in the brain are important for assessing the contribution of specific cell types and pathways toward behaviors and pathologies. Recently we found that archaerhodopsin-3 from Halorubrum sodomense (Arch), a light-driven outward proton pump, when genetically expressed in neurons, enables them to be powerfully, transiently, and repeatedly silenced in response to pulses of light. Because of the impressive…