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Fascinating study, and it's telling that it was done using more traditional fluorescence techniques instead of the newfangled microelectrode arrays supposedly d
by devindotcom 4y ago
Fascinating study, and it's telling that it was done using more traditional fluorescence techniques instead of the newfangled microelectrode arrays supposedly due to revolutionize the field. (not optogenetics as replier points out, that's for activating via light, not expressing fluorescence)
It's stuff like this that reminds me how little we understand of how even a highly structured area like the visual cortex, where there are practically purpose-built clusters of cells for certain features and contours. Good luck doing this in the frontal cortex!
But this is where it starts. We don't need to jump the queue and go straight to "the exact location of love" as we often see in bad science reporting. Nevertheless I'm sure we will see headlines like "watch a thought race across a brain" and the like. Ah well, the research is what's important.
- andbberger 4y agothis was done with fluorescence imaging, not optogenetics, which is a perturbation technique not an imaging method. i don't know where you're hearing that microelectrode arrays are due to revolution the field, but no neuroscientist thinks that. ephys is used for high temporal resolution activity measurements of a small population of neurons. it's not a new technique. if anything is revolutionizing the field it's fluorescent imaging which is in widespread use for imaging large populations of neurons (or even the whole brain in drosophila) at decent spatiotemporal resolution. each technique has it's place. > where there are practically purpose-built clusters of cells for certain features and contours that's not really true. in mammalian visual cortex V1 is probably best characterized but we're still a ways from a complete understanding. see http://redwood.psych.cornell.edu/papers/V1-article.pdf http://redwood.psych.cornell.edu/papers/V1-article.pdf the optic lobe of drosophila has been characterized in far greater detail (where we afforded such luxuries as connectomes) but we are still a long way from a complete understanding of that
- Teever 4y ago> fluorescent imaging which is in widespread use for imaging large populations of neurons (or even the whole brain in drosophila) at decent spatiotemporal resolution. Where can I learn more about this?
- andbberger 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_excitation_microscopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_excitation_microsco... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence_imaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence_imaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_imaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_imaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_encoded_voltage_indicator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_encoded_voltage_in... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCaMP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCaMP
- devindotcom 4y agoQuite right on optogenetics, that's the other way round. I should have been specific but I didn't mean what scientists think is useful but what the general public thinks will change how we understand the brain, andrhe most popular news in the last couple years relating to brain imaging and BCIs is surely Neuralink. Certainly neuroscientists know their own business better than that. The V1 stuff is what I was referring to, in that there are coherent and common pathways for recognizing low level details like contours. As I recall it is just way more purposefully structured than the more generalized frontal cortex areas. Definitely not suggesting we have achieved anything like complete understanding, or even what complete understanding would look like!
- andbberger 4y agocheck out the olshausen paper I linked
- ska 4y ago> what the general public thinks will change how we understand the brain, I suspect it's a stretch to consider that the general public has any opinion at all...