Optical stimulation of neural tissue in vivo.
For more than a century, the traditional method of stimulating neural activity has been based on electrical methods, and it remains the gold standard to date. We report a technological breakthrough in neural activation in which low-level, pulsed infrared laser light is used to elicit compound nerve and muscle potentials in mammalian peripheral nerve in vivo. Optically induced neural action potentials are spatially precise, artifact free, and damage free and are generated by use of energies well below tissue ablation threshold. Thus optical stimulation presents a simple yet novel approach to contact-free in vivo neural activation that has major implications for clinical neurosurgery, basic neurophysiology, and neuroscience.
Wells
Jonathon
J
Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, Vanderbilt University, 2201 West End Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA. jonathon.d.wells@vanderbilt.edu
Kao
Chris
C
Mariappan
Karthik
K
Albea
Jeffrey
J
Jansen
E Duco
ED
Konrad
Peter
P
Mahadevan-Jansen
Anita
A
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D007834:Lasers; D008027:Light; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012584:Sciatic Nerve / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects*