Otago: A University of Otago researcher is part of an international
collaboration that has developed an exciting and expansive new set of
tools to probe cell types in the brain. The scientists’ work, reported this week in the leading journal
Neuron, partly involves using techniques that manipulate the genes of a
small subset of cells so that the cells glow under fluorescent
microscopes. By manipulating unique gene markers for each cell type into
fluorescent labels or probes, the structure and function of various
types of neurons can be visualized and studied.
Another facet of these new tools, beyond making certain cell types
fluorescently glow, is the ability to use light to make the cells
actually fire a signal, using a technique called optogenetics.
The combination of fluorescent imaging and optogenetic stimulation is
a powerful way to learn both where cells are in space, when they are
active or silent, and how they interact, or connect, with other cells in
the circuits they form.
Associate Professor Ruth Empson of Otago’s Department of Physiology
says these innovations are powerful new techniques that will greatly
advance worldwide efforts to understand how different parts of the brain
connect and communicate during behaviour.
“It has been amazing to be part of such an important international
effort from New Zealand. These new tools are now assisting an exciting
new Marsden-funded collaboration—with Professor Thomas Knopfel of
Imperial College London and Dr Andrew Clarkson of Otago’s Anatomy
Department—that will help understand the significance of connectivity
changes among a specific group of motor neurons after stroke,” Associate
Professor Empson says.
The collaborations were led by Allen Institute for Brain Science
scientists and included researchers at University College London, MIT,
Imperial College London, University of Zurich, RIKEN Brain Science
Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital and Associate Professor Empson’s
laboratory at Otago.