Abstract

Electrophysiology is a golden method for the study of the nervous system. However, electrical stimulation has to deal with multiple challenges, including selectivity, spatial resolution, mechanical stability, and implant-induced injury. Optical stimulation techniques may avoid some of these challenges by providing more selective stimulation, higher spatial resolution and reduced invasiveness of the device. Optogenetics is a technique to introduce light-sensitive ion channels to neurons for optical stimulating of them with tight spatial and temporal confinement. While optogenetics provides a powerful tool for studying neural functions, the main limitation for clinical applications is gen expiration. One current status of the optical stimulation technique is using nanoparticles (NPs) for temperature manipulation of neural cells at the nanoscale.

© 2019 IEEE