title: Optical stimulation of neural tissue in vivo.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, Vanderbilt University, 2201 West End Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA. jonathon.d.wells@vanderbilt.edu
authors.forename: Jonathon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.forename: Karthik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mariappan
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Albea
authors.forename: E Duco
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Jansen
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Konrad
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mahadevan-Jansen
mesh_terms: 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*