Patterned NIR light illumination system for studying the localized suppression of neural activity mediated by photothermal effect

Abstract

The light-based neuromodulation technology has the advantage of being able to individually control the activity of single neurons with high spatial resolution. Here, we focused on locally inducing photothermal suppression mediated by gold nanorods. For this purpose, a patterned near-infrared light illumination system using a digital micro-mirror device was developed. Studies of light illumination parameters for localized neural suppression showed that the suppression was energy dependent and that the dynamics of neuronal suppression was related to the thermodynamics. Furthermore, TREK1 modeling cross-validated that the channel could induce neuronal suppression. In addition, simultaneous measurement of optical signals verified photothermal neural suppression at a single cell level. In particular, it was possible to verify the inhibition of localized nerve cell activation by patterned light. Finally, the localized suppression technique was applied to probe neural connection. It has been shown that it can be used to locate the cells connected to the recording neuron by finding a pair that shows inhibition at the same time during the inhibition of neurogenesis in the distant region.