On-off switch for neurons allows scientists a deeper look into the brain

SAN DIEGO Karl Deisseroth is having a very early breakfast before the day gets going at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Thirty thousand people who study the brain are here at the Convention Center, a small citys worth of badge-wearing, networking, lecture-attending scientists.

For Deisseroth, though, this crowd is a bit like the gang at Cheers everybody knows his name. He is a Stanford psychiatrist and a neuroscientist, and one of the people most responsible for the development of optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to turn brain cells on and off with a combination of genetic manipulation and pulses of light.

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On-off switch for neurons allows scientists a deeper look into the brain