Today's Cancelled Trains
Sonogenetics: Controlling Neurons with Ultrasound
An Indian American researcher has built a new way to selectively activate brain, heart, muscle and other cells with the ultiisation of ultrasound waves.
The researcher from Salk Institute of Biological studies in California says the new technique as Sonogenetics has some similarities to expand the usage of light to activate cells to better understand brain.
Light based techniques have proven useful in many cases and this new method is an additional tool to manipulate neurons and other cells in the body, said sreekanth chalasani, Assistant professor in Salk’s molecular neurobiology laboratory.
The method that uses the same type of waves used in sonography has advantages over the light based approach which is termed as optogenetics, particularly for adopting the technology to the human therapeutics.
Coming to optogenetics, practitioners add light sensitive channel proteins to neurons that they want to study.
Using a focused laser on the cells, they can selectively open the channel either to activate or silence the target neurons.
The team has decided to make a study and develop an approach which relies on ultrasound waves for the activation.
Ultrasound has got a great advantage it can travel to any part of the body without any scattering. Taking this feature they have tried to stimulate a region deep in brain without affecting other parts.
The paper appeared in the journal Nature Communications.
Source :Metro India
No comments:
Post a Comment