Wireless Activation of Target Brain Circuits in Less Than One Second - Neuroscience News
Summary: The newly developed system uses wireless technology to remotely activate certain brain networks in fruit flies in less than a second.
Source: Rice University
A research team led by Rice University neuroscientists has created wireless technology to remotely activate certain brain circuits in fruit flies in less than a second.
In a demonstration published in Natural IngredientsResearchers from Rice, Duke University, Brown University and Baylor College of Medicine used magnetic signals to activate target neurons that control the body position of fruit flies that move freely in the cage.
“To study the brain or to treat neurological disorders, the scientific community is looking for tools that are highly precise, but also minimally invasive,” said study author Jacob Robinson, a professor in electrical and computer engineering at Rice and a member of Rice’s Neuroengineering Initiative.
“Remote control of certain neural circuits with magnetic fields is the holy grail for neural technology. Our work takes an important step towards that goal as it increases the speed of remote magnetic control, bringing it closer to the brain’s natural speed.”
Robinson said the new technology activates neural circuits about 50 times faster than the best previously demonstrated technology for genetically determined magnetic stimulation of neurons.
“We made progress because the lead author, Charles Sebesta, had the idea to use a new ion channel that is sensitive to the rate of change of temperature,” said Robinson.
“By bringing together experts in the fields of genetic engineering, nanotechnology and electrical engineering, we were able to put all the pieces together and prove that this idea worked. This is truly the effort of a world-class team of scientists fortunate enough to work with us.”
The researchers used genetic engineering to express special heat-sensitive ion channels in neurons that cause the fly to partially spread its wings, a common mating cue.
The researchers then injected magnetic nanoparticles that could be heated with an applied magnetic field. An overhead camera observes flies as they roam freely around the enclosure above the electromagnet. By changing the magnetic field in a certain way, the researchers were able to heat the nanoparticles and activate the neurons.
Video analysis of the experiment shows the genetically modified fly assumes a wing-spreading posture within about half a second of a changing magnetic field.
Robinson said the ability to activate genetically targeted cells at the right time could be a powerful tool for studying the brain, treating disease and developing brain-machine direct communication technology.
Robinson is principal investigator at MOANA, an ambitious project to develop headset technology for non-surgical, wireless, brain-to-brain communication. Abbreviation for “magnetic, optical and acoustic neural access,” MOANA was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop headset technology that can “read,” or decode, neural activity in one person’s visual cortex and “write,” or encode. , that activity in other people’s brains. Magnetogenetic technology is an example of the latter.
Robinson’s team is working to achieve the goal of partially restoring vision in blind patients. By stimulating the part of the brain associated with vision, MOANA researchers hope to give patients a sense of sight even if their eyes are no longer functioning.
“The long-term goal of this work is to create a method to activate specific regions of the brain in humans for therapeutic purposes without having to perform surgery,” said Robinson. “To achieve the brain’s natural precision, we may need to get responses of up to several hundred seconds. So there is still a way to go.”
Rice study co-authors include Sebesta, Daniel Torres Hinojosa, Joseph Asfouri, Guillaume Duret, Kaiyi Jiang, Linlin Zhang, Qingbo Zhang and Gang Bao. Additional co-writers include Boshuo Wang, Zhongxi Li, Stefan Goetz and Angel Peterchev of Duke; Zhen Xiao and Vicki Colvin from Brown; and Herman Dierick of Baylor.
Funding: This research was funded by DARPA (N66001-19-C-4020), National Science Foundation (1707562), Welch Foundation (C-1963) and National Institutes of Health (R01MH107474).
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About this neurotech research news
Author: Jade Boyd
Source: Rice University
Contact: Jade Boyd – Rice University
Picture: Image credited to C. Sebesta and J. Robinson/Rice University
Original Research: Closed access.
“Subsecond multichannel magnetic control of specific neural circuits in free-moving flies” by Jacob Robinson et al. Natural Ingredients
Abstract
Subsecond multichannel magnetic control of specific neural circuits in free-moving flies
Timely activation of genetically targeted cells is a powerful tool for studying neural circuits and the control of cell-based therapies.
Magnetic control of cell activity, or ‘magnetogenetics’, using heating of magnetic nanoparticles of temperature-sensitive ion channels enables remote and non-invasive activation of neurons for deep tissue applications and independent animal studies.
However, the in vivo response time of thermal magnetogenetics is currently tens of seconds, which prevents proper temporal modulation of neural activity. Moreover, magnetogenetics has not yet achieved in vivo multiplex stimulation of different groups of neurons.
Here we generate a subsecond behavioral response in Drosophila melanogaster by combining magnetic nanoparticles with level-sensitive thermoreceptors (TRPA1-A). Furthermore, by tuning the magnetic nanoparticles to respond to different magnetic field strengths and frequencies, we achieve subsecond multichannel stimulation.
These results bring magnetogenetics closer to temporal resolution and multiplex stimulation is possible with optogenetics while maintaining minimal invasion and deep tissue stimulation is only possible with magnetic control.
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