Jack A. Wells1, Simon Walker-Samuel1,
Nephtali Marina2, Melina Figueiredo3, Anja G.
Teschemacher3, Michael Spyer2, Alexander V. Gourine2,
Sergey Kasparov3, Mark F. Lythgoe1
1Centre for Advanced Biomedical
Imaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Neuroscience,
Physiology & Pharmacology, University College London, London, United
Kingdom; 3Physiology & Pharmacology, University of Bristol,
Bristol, United Kingdom
The
relative contribution of the neuronal and glial activation to the BOLD
signals is not fully established. Optogenetic techniques, in which particular
brain cells are engineered to express light-sensitive ion channels, offer
minimally invasive and temporally precise control of the activities of
distinct cellular populations.