Fascinating study, and it's telling that it was done using more traditional fluorescence techniques instead of the newfangled microelectrode arrays supposedly due to revolutionize the field. (not optogenetics as replier points out, that's for activating via light, not expressing fluorescence)
It's stuff like this that reminds me how little we understand of how even a highly structured area like the visual cortex, where there are practically purpose-built clusters of cells for certain features and contours. Good luck doing this in the frontal cortex!
But this is where it starts. We don't need to jump the queue and go straight to "the exact location of love" as we often see in bad science reporting. Nevertheless I'm sure we will see headlines like "watch a thought race across a brain" and the like. Ah well, the research is what's important.
this was done with fluorescence imaging, not optogenetics, which is a perturbation technique not an imaging method.
i don't know where you're hearing that microelectrode arrays are due to revolution the field, but no neuroscientist thinks that. ephys is used for high temporal resolution activity measurements of a small population of neurons. it's not a new technique. if anything is revolutionizing the field it's fluorescent imaging which is in widespread use for imaging large populations of neurons (or even the whole brain in drosophila) at decent spatiotemporal resolution.
each technique has it's place.
> where there are practically purpose-built clusters of cells for certain features and contours
the optic lobe of drosophila has been characterized in far greater detail (where we afforded such luxuries as connectomes) but we are still a long way from a complete understanding of that
Quite right on optogenetics, that's the other way round.
I should have been specific but I didn't mean what scientists think is useful but what the general public thinks will change how we understand the brain, andrhe most popular news in the last couple years relating to brain imaging and BCIs is surely Neuralink. Certainly neuroscientists know their own business better than that.
The V1 stuff is what I was referring to, in that there are coherent and common pathways for recognizing low level details like contours. As I recall it is just way more purposefully structured than the more generalized frontal cortex areas. Definitely not suggesting we have achieved anything like complete understanding, or even what complete understanding would look like!
> fluorescent imaging which is in widespread use for imaging large populations of neurons (or even the whole brain in drosophila) at decent spatiotemporal resolution.
Studies like this one are small steps forward, but the advance is surprisingly steady. Maybe people in a century will make fun of us brutes for not knowing how our brains worked.
I know what you mean. I suspect future people will marvel on how we managed to do things and how we invented and discovered things. At least that’s how we see our ancestors now, but yes, some of our behavior will look quite barbaric
Fascinating study, and it's telling that it was done using more traditional fluorescence techniques instead of the newfangled microelectrode arrays supposedly due to revolutionize the field. (not optogenetics as replier points out, that's for activating via light, not expressing fluorescence)
It's stuff like this that reminds me how little we understand of how even a highly structured area like the visual cortex, where there are practically purpose-built clusters of cells for certain features and contours. Good luck doing this in the frontal cortex!
But this is where it starts. We don't need to jump the queue and go straight to "the exact location of love" as we often see in bad science reporting. Nevertheless I'm sure we will see headlines like "watch a thought race across a brain" and the like. Ah well, the research is what's important.
this was done with fluorescence imaging, not optogenetics, which is a perturbation technique not an imaging method.
i don't know where you're hearing that microelectrode arrays are due to revolution the field, but no neuroscientist thinks that. ephys is used for high temporal resolution activity measurements of a small population of neurons. it's not a new technique. if anything is revolutionizing the field it's fluorescent imaging which is in widespread use for imaging large populations of neurons (or even the whole brain in drosophila) at decent spatiotemporal resolution.
each technique has it's place.
> where there are practically purpose-built clusters of cells for certain features and contours
that's not really true. in mammalian visual cortex V1 is probably best characterized but we're still a ways from a complete understanding. see http://redwood.psych.cornell.edu/papers/V1-article.pdf
the optic lobe of drosophila has been characterized in far greater detail (where we afforded such luxuries as connectomes) but we are still a long way from a complete understanding of that
Quite right on optogenetics, that's the other way round.
I should have been specific but I didn't mean what scientists think is useful but what the general public thinks will change how we understand the brain, andrhe most popular news in the last couple years relating to brain imaging and BCIs is surely Neuralink. Certainly neuroscientists know their own business better than that.
The V1 stuff is what I was referring to, in that there are coherent and common pathways for recognizing low level details like contours. As I recall it is just way more purposefully structured than the more generalized frontal cortex areas. Definitely not suggesting we have achieved anything like complete understanding, or even what complete understanding would look like!
> what the general public thinks will change how we understand the brain,
I suspect it's a stretch to consider that the general public has any opinion at all...
check out the olshausen paper I linked
> fluorescent imaging which is in widespread use for imaging large populations of neurons (or even the whole brain in drosophila) at decent spatiotemporal resolution.
Where can I learn more about this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_excitation_microsco...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescence_imaging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_imaging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_encoded_voltage_in...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCaMP
Studies like this one are small steps forward, but the advance is surprisingly steady. Maybe people in a century will make fun of us brutes for not knowing how our brains worked.
I know what you mean. I suspect future people will marvel on how we managed to do things and how we invented and discovered things. At least that’s how we see our ancestors now, but yes, some of our behavior will look quite barbaric
I guess if you have to pay attention to correlations in noise, you can't really call it 'noise' anymore...
Didn’t they do this in The Dark Forest?