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MIT Shows How to Shut Down Brain With Light

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Mar 29, 2007 04:32 AM
from the men-in-black dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The MIT home-page story today is about a way to use light to shut down brain activity. "Scientists at the MIT Media Lab have invented a way to reversibly silence brain cells using pulses of yellow light, offering the prospect of controlling the haywire neuron activity that occurs in diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease."
+ -
story
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  • by joe_cot (1011355) on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:34AM (#18525831) Homepage
    There are easier ways to shut down brain activity. 4chan comes to mind.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:35AM (#18525837)
    ...that this is actually a plan to invent the Neuralizer from Men in Black?
  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Steve--Balllmer (1070854) on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:37AM (#18525845)
    ... a scientific reason why we /.ers should not leave the darkness of our parents' basements and our computer monitors, and continue to avoid the dreaded realm known as "outside".
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:39AM (#18525857)
    According to the article:

    When neurons are engineered to express the halorhodopsin gene, the researchers can inhibit their activity by shining yellow light on them. Light activates the chloride pumps, which drive chloride ions into the neurons, lowering their voltage and silencing their firing.
    So, if we genetically engineer some people with Parkinson's or epilepsy to have these halorhodopsin neurons, we can give them a normal life as long as we find a way to shine light directly into their brains?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      So, if we genetically engineer some people with Parkinson's or epilepsy to have these halorhodopsin neurons, we can give them a normal life as long as we find a way to shine light directly into their brains?

      I think the article infers that we genetically engineer animals with Parkinson's and Epilepsy having the gene (that is, set up a disease model), then implant LED's into their heads, play with the lights and see what happens, then get a PhD and maybe even a Nobel Prize.

      It's unlikely they would use this method in actual human therapy.

      • by kripkenstein (913150) on Thursday March 29 2007, @07:38AM (#18526547)
        No, actually the article directly implies that human treatment will come out of this:

        "In the future, controlling the activity patterns of neurons may enable very specific treatments for neurological and psychiatric diseases, with few or no side effects," said Edward Boyden, assistant professor
        - so this is not just a case of a bad writeup of serious research, or a bad summary on Slashdot. It could be a quote taken out of context, though. In any case, the researchers think this (or something related to it) will be viable eventually, while I, for one, must agree with the grandparent post - how exactly will these light-sensitive chloride pumps get into the brains of already-living sick people?

        I assume that the final human treatment, if any is arrived at, will be very different from what they are doing at present. Time will tell. In any case, a very interesting area of research, even if it is hyped a little regarding possible applications.
        • by TapeCutter (624760) on Thursday March 29 2007, @08:58AM (#18527013) Journal
          I think the part about controling fits is very vaugue, I read "sponsor bait" or to be more polite speculation. Overall I think TFA gave the impression they are planning to use it to non-invasively investigate "circuits" in the hope of creating a device that can predict and prevent a fit with the minimum of intervention.

          The news (to me) in the story is a non-invasive tool that can "flip" individual neurons into a binary on/off state in a controlled manner. I don't know what current "tools" are capable of, nor their level of invasiveness, but it seems to me a wetware debbuging tool such as this could lead to an explosion of knowlage that would make it worthy of a Nobel prize in the not too distant future.

          Having said that, AFAIK indivdual neurons are not binary, their activity level is mesured as a "frequency". It would be interesting to know if the neuron's firing frequency can be controlled with more resolution than the simple on/off implied in TFA.
  • by User 956 (568564) on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:40AM (#18525859) Homepage
    The MIT home-page story today is about a way to use light to shut down brain activity.

    Well, I guess that's cheaper than alcohol.
  • Politics (Score:5, Funny)

    by nagora (177841) on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:43AM (#18525869)
    Expect to see a lot of yellow lights at party rallies from now on...
  • Hooray! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikkelm (1000451) on Thursday March 29 2007, @04:53AM (#18525913)
    Finally I can get a pair of tinfoil shades to go with my hat.
  • by bwd234 (806660) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:12AM (#18525993)
    welcome our new yellow light emitting overlords!
  • by SeaFox (739806) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:12AM (#18525997)

    Scientists at the MIT Media Lab have invented a way to reversibly silence brain cells using pulses of yellow light

    Yet another reason CFLs are better!
  • Another ,,, (Score:5, Funny)

    by BlueTrin (683373) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:15AM (#18526007) Homepage Journal
    Another sexist topic about blonde girls !
  • by sshore (50665) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:25AM (#18526039)

    According to the article, the yellow light "silences" neurons that have been engineered to include the halorhodopsin gene found in certain bacteria. The light doesn't have the same effect on the neurons that you'd typically find in your skull.

    I'm not sure how this would be used clinically to treat epilepsy. Perhaps by introducing the genes into cells in the affected area using a retrovirus?

  • Great! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by John Betonschaar (178617) on Thursday March 29 2007, @07:09AM (#18526431)
    Now all we need is a different type of light to activate some people's brains!
  • by SethHoyt (1024709) on Thursday March 29 2007, @07:27AM (#18526487)
    Could this explain why when a traffic light turns yellow, nobody seems to notice it?
  • by TomatoMan (93630) on Thursday March 29 2007, @07:35AM (#18526523) Homepage Journal
    TV has been shutting all of our brains down for decades.
  • by Doc Ruby (173196) on Thursday March 29 2007, @08:53AM (#18526957) Homepage Journal

    When neurons are engineered to express the halorhodopsin gene, the researchers can inhibit their activity by shining yellow light on them.


    So not only would doctors have to get light inside the brain, they'd first have to genetically engineer the neurons to include and express the halorhodopsin gene. The right neurons: the ones that will later have Parkinson's Disease or whatever is being treated.

    How are they going to guess which neurons? Which healthy person is going to let them genetically engineer their neurons? Those neurons are going to behave the same, though they're now expressing proteins that make them work like retinal cells?

    Installing these shutdown hooks is a neat trick. But not for neurological medicine. Maybe for some biomechanics or biocomputation. Throwing genes into neurons for probing with light so violates our most absolutely personal spaces - inside our craniums and our genomes - that the cure is worse than the disease.
    • Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bindo (82607) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:06AM (#18525975)
      Considering certain patterns of light, as found in some video games, for example, have the ability to bring about seizures and people the suffer from Epilepsy, it makes sanse that certain patterns of light would also be able to reverse that effect.

      Considering certain patterns of falling boulders, as found on some mountains, for example, have the ability to bring death and people the suffer from Epilepsy (sic!). it makes sanse that certain patterns of falling boulders would also be able to reverse that effect.
      NOT!

      Common sense is not a substitute for knowledge. The two effects are not even related.
    • by mrbluze (1034940) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:40AM (#18526107) Journal

      Did anyone read TFA? It has nothing to do with light entering the eye and hitting the retina. Forget the strobe lights!

      This study is great, because it means we can study animals better. It means researchers will get much more useful information from animal studies (instead of operating on 1000's of rabbits or something, they can do heaps of studies on just one rabbit), which will lead to new and better targets for drug research, better drugs, and perhaps a cure - way down the track.

      • Re:Or Wolfe (Score:5, Informative)

        by cnettel (836611) on Thursday March 29 2007, @05:08AM (#18525979)
        This is direct exposure, not through the eyes. In addition, the neurons have been altered (an added gene with a photosensitive product) to respond to this treatment.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        As far as it is possible to make any kind of statement about this, sunlight is white.