Optogenetics

Optogenetics is the integration of genetics and optics to control precisely described events within exact cells of living tissue even within freely moving animals with the temporal precision (millisecond-timescale) required to keep pace with functioning intact biological systems and with suitably fast and precise techniques for reading out the effects of optogenetic control. Optogenetics is a methodology which allows targeted, fast control of precisely described events in biological systems as complex as freely moving mammals. Through delivering optical control at the speed (millisecond-scale) and with the precision (cell type–specific) needed for biological processing optogenetic approaches have opened new landscapes for the study of biology, health and disease in both.

Millisecond-scale temporal precision is central to optogenetics that permits the experimenter to keep pace with fast biological information processing (for instance, in probing the causal role of exact action potential patterns in defined neurons). Certainly, to probe the neural code, optogenetics through definition must operate on the millisecond timescale to allow addition or deletion of precise activity patterns within specific cells in the brains of intact animals, involving mammals.