Recent advances in optogenetics and pharmacogenetics

Optogenetics with microbial opsin genes, and pharmacogenetics with designer receptors, represent potent and versatile experimental modalities that can be integrated with each other as well as with a rich diversity of synergistic methods to provide fundamental opportunities in neuroscience research. The 7th Annual Brain Research Meeting in New Orleans in October 2012, Optogenetics and Pharmacogenetics in Neuronal Function and Dysfunction, brought together leading researchers that have developed and used these tools to explore a wide range of questions in nervous system function and dysfunction. This special issue of Brain Research includes articles by speakers in this meeting and others, which together synthesize and summarize the state of the art for optogenetics and designer receptors. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Optogenetics (7th BRES).

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[2]  Lief E. Fenno,et al.  The Microbial Opsin Family of Optogenetic Tools , 2011, Cell.

[3]  Lief E. Fenno,et al.  Principles for applying optogenetic tools derived from direct comparative analysis of microbial opsins , 2011, Nature Methods.

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[6]  Lief E. Fenno,et al.  The development and application of optogenetics. , 2011, Annual review of neuroscience.

[7]  Dae-Shik Kim,et al.  Global and local fMRI signals driven by neurons defined optogenetically by type and wiring , 2010, Nature.

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[12]  K. Deisseroth,et al.  Optogenetic investigation of neural circuits underlying brain disease in animal models , 2012, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.