...forwarded, for your information, Martin ========================= -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [High-Throughput-Technology-Community] 2012 Bagrit Lecture by Professor Ed Boyden, MIT - “Optogenetics and other tools for the analysis of neural circuits” - 14 May 2012 Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:51:17 +0000 From: Fenton, Rob J <r.fenton@imperial.ac.uk> 2012 Bagrit Lecture “Optogenetics and other tools for the analysis of neural circuits” Professor Ed Boyden, MIT Date: Monday 14 May 2012 Time: 17.30 Venue: Lecture Theatre G16, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, South Kensington Campus (building no 33 on the map). RSVP: Angela Glyes a.glyes@imperial.ac.uk Understanding how neural circuits implement brain functions, and how these computations go awry in brain disorders, is a top priority for neuroscience. Over the last several years we have developed a rapidly-expanding suite of genetically-encoded reagents that, when expressed in specific neuron types in the nervous system, enable their electrical activities to be powerfully and precisely activated and silenced in response to pulses of light. These tools are in widespread use for analyzing the causal role of defined cell types in normal and pathological brain functions. In this talk I will briefly give an overview of the field, and then I will discuss a number of new tools for neural activation and silencing that we are developing, including new molecules with augmented amplitudes, improved safety profiles, novel color and light-sensitivity capabilities, and unique new capabilities. We have begun to develop hardware to enable complex and distributed neural circuits to be precisely controlled, and for the network-wide impact of a neural control event to be measured using distributed electrodes, fMRI, and robotic intracellular neural recording. We explore how these tools can be used to enable systematic analysis of neural circuit functions in the fields of emotion, sensation, and movement, and in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Finally, we discuss our pre-clinical work on translation of such tools to support novel ultraprecise neuromodulation therapies for human patients. Professor Ed Boyden Ed Boyden is the Benesse Career Development Professor, and Associate Professor of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, at the MIT Media Lab and the MIT McGovern Institute. He leads the Synthetic Neurobiology Group, which develops tools for controlling and observing the dynamic circuits of the brain, and uses these neurotechnologies to understand how cognition and emotion arise from brain network operation, as well as to enable systematic repair of intractable brain disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, post- traumatic stress disorder, and chronic pain. The tools his group has invented include a suite of 'optogenetic' tools that are now in use by hundreds of groups around the world, for activating and silencing neurons with light. These tools enable the causal assessment of how specific neurons contribute to normal and pathological brain functions, revealing with great temporal precision the processes for which their activities are necessary or sufficient. He has launched an award-winning series of classes at MIT that teach principles of neuroengineering, starting with basic principles of how to control and observe neural functions, and culminating with strategies for launching companies in the nascent neurotechnology space. He was named to the "Top 35 Innovators Under the Age of 35" by Technology Review in 2006, and to the "Top 20 Brains Under Age 40" by Discover Magazine in 2008. He has received the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, the Society for Neuroscience Research Award for Innovation in Neuroscience, the NSF CAREER Award, and the Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator Award. His work was in 2010 recognized as the "Method of the Year" by the journal Nature Methods, and in 2011, he delivered a lecture on optogenetics at TED. Ed received his Ph.D. in neurosciences from Stanford University as a Hertz Fellow, where he discovered that the molecular mechanisms used to store a memory are determined by the content to be learned. Before that, he received three degrees in electrical engineering and physics from MIT. He has contributed to over 250 peer-reviewed papers, current or pending patents, and articles, and has given over 140 invited talks on his work.