Ed Boyden: recommendation

Transcript context

…If I think about mental illness, it seems that it’s hard to find chemical correlates for mind states that would normally be counted as mentally ill. Is that part of the puzzle? How does mental illness show up in the brain? Do we know anything about that? This is a big mystery. There are two issues which really need to be addressed. One is that mental illnesses, for the most part, are defined by the symptoms. I have a lack of appetite, I feel apathy, I don’t feel pleasure in things that I normally do take pleasure in. Then the chemical side is also a bit murky. If we think about pharmaceuticals that treat brain conditions — it’s bathing the brain, this complexly wired circuit, in a substance. So of course, it’s going to affect parts of the brain that you want to change as well as parts of the brain that you’d rather leave alone. I think part of the problem is, we need to define brain conditions in terms of the underlying wiring and circuity. Most of the technologies we build are oriented around two classes of approach. One is, can we make maps of the brain — detailed maps of the wiring, if you will, of the brain. The other is, can you watch and control the high-speed dynamics of the brain. In other words, can you watch the brain in action and then perturb it so that you can heal the brain by speaking the natural language of the brain, which is electrical pulses. Let’s get to optogenetics, which you just mentioned. If I understand this correctly, you can, in essence, turn on lights, control a mouse, and make the mouse run in circles. Is that an oversimplified account of what you do that’s correct?…

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