title: Photostimulation of astrocytes with femtosecond laser pulses.
abstract: The involvement of astrocytes in brain functions rather than support has been identified and widely concerned. However the lack of an effective stimulation of astrocytes hampers our understanding of their essential roles. Here, we employed 800-nm near infrared (NIR) femtosecond laser to induce Ca2+ wave in astrocytes. It was demonstrated that photostimulation of astrocytes with femtosecond laser pulses is efficient with the advantages of non-contact, non-disruptiveness, reproducibility, and high spatiotemporal precision. Photostimulation of astrocytes would facilitate investigations on information processing in neuronal circuits by providing effective way to excite astrocytes.
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xiuli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xiaohua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Qingming
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Shaoqun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zeng
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000528:radiation effects*; D020013:Calcium Signaling / Q000528:radiation effects; D007834:Lasers; D008027:Light; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D015203:Reproducibility of Results