Loren Rieth

Salary not from the awardee Institution

Development of an integrated array for simultaneous optogenetic stimulation and electrical recording to study cortical circuit function in the non-human primate brain

Normal brain function depends on the orderly development of circuits in the cerebral cortex and on their intact function. The novel technology that will result from the work proposed in this application will allow for unprecedented optogenetic investigations of the function of specific cortical circuits in the non-human primate brain. Understanding how cortical circuits operate in the normal brain will provide a foundation for understanding the consequences of their dysfunction in disorders of brain function such as autism and schizophrenia, which have been directly linked to abnormalities in inter- areal connectivity (Belmonte et al., 2004, Lynall et al., 2010)117,118. Our technology will also open the possibility for a new generation of precise neurological and psychiatric therapeutic interventions via cell type specific optical neural control prosthetics, to restore lost cortical function (Bradley et al., 2005, Schmidt et al., 1996, Torab et al., 2011)119,120,121, or for treatment of neurological disorders such as epilepsy (Tonnesen et al., 2009)122. One of the key factors impeding the development of medical applications of optogenetics in humans has been the difficulty of applying this method to non- genetically tractable species and to large brains such as those of primates. The present proposal specifically tackles these problems and, therefore, will have an important positive impact in the future development of optogenetics for medical applications in humans.