Optogenetics

Cognito Therapeutics, an MIT startup co-founded by Prof. Li-Huei Tsai and Prof. Ed Boyden, has developed a headset that uses light and sound to slow the cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients, reports Emily Mullin for Wired. “Cognito’s headset, dubbed Spectris, delivers flashing lights and sounds through a pair of connected glasses and headphones to stimulate gamma waves in the brain” writes Mullin. “Different types of brain waves have different paces, or frequencies. Gamma waves are fast-frequency brain waves associated with thinking skills and memory, and people with Alzheimer’s are known to have fewer of these fast brain waves.”

In an interview with Clare Wilson of New Scientist, Prof. Ed Boyden, one of the co-inventors of the field of optogenetics, discusses how the technique was used to help partially restore vision for a blind patient. “It’s exciting to see the first publication on human optogenetics,” says Boyden.

Prof. Ed Boyden speaks with New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer about how scientists were able to partially restore a patient’s vision using optogenetics. “So far, I’ve thought of optogenetics as a tool for scientists primarily, since it’s being used by thousands of people to study the brain,” says Boyden, who helped pioneer the field of optogenetics. “But if optogenetics proves itself in the clinic, that would be extremely exciting.”

Molly Webster of WNYC’s Radiolab visits the Picower Institute to learn more about how researchers are investigating new techniques that might eventually be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Prof. Li-Huei Tsai speaks about her group’s work using flickering light to reduce the beta amyloid plaque found in Alzheimer’s patients, and graduate student Dheeraj Roy discusses his work recovering memories with light.

WBUR's Carey Goldberg profiles Prof. Feng Zhang, a “sunny science superstar” whose discoveries include major advances in optogenetics and CRISPR. "Feng is a one-in-a-generation scientist who sees connections that the rest of us have overlooked," says Prof. Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.

A new study by MIT researchers shows how stress can lead people to make risky decisions, reports Kristin Hugo for Newsweek. “The study lends insights into how neurological disorders affect people. It could be the stress of dealing with inabilities to function properly and staving off cravings, compounded with the chemical effects on the brain, that are influencing people’s uninhibited behavior.”

Wired reporter Nicola Davison spotlights the work of graduate student Dheeraj Roy, whose research is focused on developing new techniques to help Alzheimer’s patients remember lost memories. Davison writes that Roy’s findings offer a potential “strategy for improving memory that could go beyond the modest benefit of available drugs.”

The Boston Globe Magazine’s list of some of the most innovative ideas, people, and companies of 2016 features graduate student Dheeraj Roy, whose research suggests that one day optogenetics could potentially be used to help stimulate memories in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

A study by MIT researchers is providing more information about how the brain stores and processes social memories, writes Hallie Smith for Boston Magazine. Smith explains that, in the future, the findings may be applicable to autism research and therapy. 

MIT researchers have developed a stretchy, biocompatible material that could be implanted in a patient’s body and used to stimulate cells or detect disease, according to FOX News. The hydrogel “could bend and twist in a patient’s body without breaking down.”

Writing for The New York Times, Katie Hafner highlights how MIT researchers have identified a region of the brain that they believe could be responsible for producing feelings of loneliness. Hafner explains that “the region, known as the dorsal raphe nucleus, or D.R.N., is best known for its link to depression.”

MIT researchers have shown that memories can be restored using optogenetics, findings that could help treat Alzheimer’s. According to The Economist, the findings provide evidence “about how memories are lost during the early stages of the disease and may point to how…those memories might be brought back.”

A new study conducted by MIT researchers suggests that optogenetics could one day be used to help stimulate lost memories in Alzheimer’s patients, reports Ashley Welch for CBS News. Walsh writes that the researchers have “found evidence that ‘lost’ memories may just be inaccessible, with the potential to be retrieved.”

In an article posted by Scientific American, Sara Reardon writes that MIT researchers have shown that patients with Alzheimer’s can still form new memories and that lost memories could potentially be recalled using optogenetics. The findings “may allow more targeted stimulation, especially once researchers understand what happens to memories after they leave the hippocampus.”

Huffington Post reporter Ann Brenoff writes about a new MIT study that finds that Alzheimer’s patients may one day be able to recover lost memories using optogenetics. “The findings raise the hope — and possibility — that future treatments might indeed reverse some of the memory loss in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients.”