Mads Nyborg Støstad and Erlend Lånke Solbu report on the exciting potential of optogenetics in the article "Laseren som kan løse depresjonsgåten", published 30.07.2017 on the NRK website.
Nobel prize winner Prof. Susumu Tonegawa (Tonegawa Lab, MIT) explains that lasers can be used to activate particular cells in the brain, and thereby alter the behaviour. He goes even further to claim that optogenetics can be used to cure depression.
CINPLA's leader, Assoc. Prof. Marianne Fyhn, weighs in on this claim as well as the potential of this technology in examining how single cells in the brain can impact mental processing, "I think that Tonegawa is interpreting too much from his data at this point. However, my belief is that optogenetics is a unique tool which will give immense insight into basic brain functions, which will in turn bring knowledge about mental illnesses."
CINPLA'a PhD students Mikkel Lepperød and Elise Thompson show NRK related experiments performed in the Hafting-Fyhn lab.
Article details:
Title - Laseren som kan løse depresjonsgåten
Authors - Mads Nyborg Støstad, Erlend Lånke Solbu
Website - www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/laseren-som-kan-lose-depresjonsgaten-1.13586886
Radio interview:
CINPLA's Elise Holter Thompson talks with Norgesglasset about optogenetics and memory retrieval.
Link - https://radio.nrk.no/serie/norgesglasset/DMTA01015217/01-08-2017#t=1h23m21s