Photonics for a Better World

Raphael Yuste discusses work in brain mapping in a new video interview with SPIE. Rafael Yuste and his research group at Columbia University are trying to image the neural circuits of the brain in hopes of gaining a better understanding of how the brain functions. However, said Yuste in a recent tour and video interview of his lab with SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics , “The methods in neuroscience have not been there yet.” Yuste is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and co-director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Circuits at Columbia. He and David Boas (director of the optics division of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School) chair the new Brain applications track at SPIE Photonics West 2017 in San Francisco, running 28 January through 2 February. Using novel optical techniques such as two-photon and nonlinear microscopy, Yuste’s lab is trying t...

Brain mapping -- using light to observe and track neuron activity in the brain -- holds much promise for treating some of the most troubling conditions. Among its goals are treatment of stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, and even depression. The field is claiming the attention of R&D funders as well. A White House announcement last week of a potential$100 million funding pot for brain research , as part of the presidential budget proposal for fiscal year 2014, made waves that echoed the response to an announcement last month of a far-reaching brain research program in Europe. As Mike Hatcher , editor of optics.org, noted, the White House-proposed BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnoloiges) initiative still requires backing by a fractious Congress. “But if the public-private scheme does go ahead it will mirror an even larger funding proposal in Europe, where -- along with graphene research -- the ‘Human Brain Project’ was earmarked as ...

Repairing brain disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chronic pain, by targeted application of light: research by the Synthetic Neurobiology Group led by Ed Boyden at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has the potential to change many lives through photonics. Boyden described his work in a new video interview for the SPIE Newsroom. Read more here: Boyden's article on 'Controlling the brain with light,' SPIE Newsroom 'Seeing the light,' MIT News 'Selective brain stimulation with light,' SPIE Newsroom