Treating Brain Disorders With Light

Researchers at MIT are developing new tools called "super silencers" that may be able to treat various neuralogical disorders including epilepsy and Parkinson's disease or even brain injury. These tools function by shutting down the activity of the select neurons that express one of two new genes that will be inserted into them. This is a good method because it allows some neurons to be inactivated while others are still allowed to function, and it only uses different colored light rather than anything dangerous.

The two genes involved are called Arch and Mac, and they are taken from bacterial or fungal organisms. Yellow light activates the Arch gene, and Mac is activated by blue light. When these are activated, they code for proteins that prevent the neurons from firing action potentials. Only the neurons that have these specific genes in them are prevented from firing, meaning the rest of the brain cells are not affected. In this way, the researchers can fine-tune their control over which part of the pathway they want to interrupt.

So far, the research is concentrating on figuring out whether this treatment is safe and effective in monkeys. Soon, however, the scientists hope to be able to use this technique to treat people suffering from neurological disorders and to discover the pathways that contribute to various brain functions.

Sandhya Ramesh
VTPP 435-502

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