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Abstract

On the anniversary of the Boyden et al. (2005) paper that introduced the use of channelrhodopsin in neurons, Nature Neuroscience asks selected members of the community to comment on the utility, impact and future of this important technique. Neuroscientists have long dreamed of the ability to control neuronal activity with exquisite spatiotemporal precision. In this issue, we celebrate the tenth anniversary of a paper published in the September 2005 issue of Nature Neuroscience by a team led by Karl Deisseroth (Nat. Neurosci. 8, 1263–1268 (2005)). In this study, the authors expressed a light-sensitive microbial protein, Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), in neurons and showed that exposing these neurons to pulses of light could activate them in a temporally precise and reliable manner. In the decade since this paper, 'optogenetic' approaches have been widely and enthusiastically adopted by the field and applied to a vast array of questions both in neuroscience and beyond. In the intervening years, improvements to early techniques have provided the community with an optogenetics tool box that has opened the door to experiments we could have once only dreamed of. Controlling neuronal activity in real time, we now have the ability to determine causality between activity patterns in specific neuronal circuits and brain function and behavior, enabling researchers to definitively test long-held views and advance our understanding of brain function in both health and disease. Anniversaries are often a time to reflect and, in light of the seminal influence this technique has had on neuroscience, we were curious to know how researchers in the field feel the advances in optogenetic approaches have influenced their work, what they think the future holds in terms of the application of these techniques and what they see as the obstacles we need to overcome to get there. Toward this end, we've asked a number of scientists to share their thoughts with us in this Q&A. Although we weren't able to ask more than a small fraction of the field, their answers give an exciting view of the power and potential of optogenetic approaches for understanding, and even potentially repairing, the nervous system.