Light-controlled brain research wins physiology Nobel
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing optogenetics, a technique that uses light to switch nerve cells on and off in intact brains.
That capability offers more information than older approaches that rely on deleting cells. According to Ars Technica, it would be far more informative to activate and shut down neurons in an intact brain than to remove them genetically.
The technique grew out of studies of single-celled algae that are attracted to light. Those studies, along with work by many other researchers, built an entire field now called optogenetics: using light to alter the behavior of nerve cells marked by the activity of individual genes.
For decades, scientists have assembled a partial picture of what specialized cells within the brain and spinal cord do. By studying how the brain develops, they could identify genes that were active in different populations of neurons and where in the brain those neurons resided. In some cases, those genes could then be used to genetically delete the neurons, giving researchers some indication of what they might be doing. That approach built on information obtained from studies of brains with damaged regions.
The deletion method has limits. The brain is flexible enough to potentially adapt to the loss of some cells, and the loss of cells early in development may alter the development of any neurons they would have normally formed connections with. Activating and shutting down neurons in an otherwise intact brain avoids those complications.
The Nobel Prize rewards the three researchers who developed the ability to do precisely that. Their work started from studies of light-attracted single-celled algae and expanded into a field that allows light to control nerve cells tagged by the activity of individual genes.
Optogenetics has given scientists a way to test what specific neurons do without permanently removing them. By turning cells on or off with light, researchers can observe effects in a brain that remains intact.
Editor's Summary
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing optogenetics, which uses light to control nerve cells. The method allows neurons to be activated or shut down in intact brains, offering a more informative approach than genetic deletion. It emerged from studies of light-attracted single-celled algae and became a field for altering nerve cells marked by individual gene activity.