Neuronal activation induced by femtosecond laser irradiation and its application on the cell-based assay

Abstract

Femtosecond laser stimulation on a neuron can generate localized reactive oxygen species (ROS) which can induce neuronal activation. However, the detailed mechanism of such neuronal activation method has not been elucidated, so the generation and propagation of calcium signal at the targeted neuron were investigated in this research. I found that superoxide is the main source of calcium elevation at the single cell level, while calcium propagation at the network level was blocked by extracellular calcium depletion. Such calcium elevation,propagation and cell death pattern due to laser stimulation were different when the neurons were treated with $A\beta$ , a protein accumulated in brains with Alzheimer’s disease. The results collectively indicate that femtosecond laser stimulation may distinguish abnormal neurons treated with toxic drugs and healthy neuron through investigation on laser-induced responses, which may be further applied for drug screening at clinical study.