{"id":115581,"date":"2020-11-07T10:22:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T18:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/neuroscientists-reprogram-brains-gps-using-laser-beams"},"modified":"2020-11-07T10:22:33","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T18:22:33","slug":"neuroscientists-reprogram-brains-gps-using-laser-beams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/neuroscientists-reprogram-brains-gps-using-laser-beams","title":{"rendered":"Neuroscientists Reprogram Brain\u2019s GPS Using Laser Beams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/neuroscientists-reprogram-brains-gps-using-laser-beams.gif\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Neuroscientists at University College London (UCL) have used laser beams to \u201cswitch on\u201d neurons in mice, providing new insight into the hidden workings of memory and showing how memories underpin the brain\u2019s inner GPS system.<\/p>\n<p>The study, published in the journal <i>Cell<\/i>, explains how researchers harnessed an \u2018all-optical\u2019 approach using twin lasers to simultaneously read and write the activity of \u2018place cells\u2019 (a type of neuron) in mice, as they navigated a virtual reality environment.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably, by stimulating the place cells, scientists were able to reactivate (or retrieve) the memory of a location where the mice obtained a reward, which in turn \u201cmentally teleported\u201d the mice, causing them to act as if they were in the rewarded place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neuroscientists at University College London (UCL) have used laser beams to \u201cswitch on\u201d neurons in mice, providing new insight into the hidden workings of memory and showing how memories underpin the brain\u2019s inner GPS system. The study, published in the journal Cell, explains how researchers harnessed an \u2018all-optical\u2019 approach using twin lasers to simultaneously read [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,1879],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience","category-virtual-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}