Lighting the Way to Study the Brain

Finding new technologies to visualize and quantify the firing of individual neurons and their myriad network connections is an essential goal of the new BRAIN initiative recently announced by President Obama. Dr. Vincent Pieribone, Fellow, in collaboration with Dr. Michael Nitibach and his lab at the Yale School of Medicine, have successfully shown in fruit fly that a genetically encoded fluorescent voltage-sensitive protein recently identified by Pieribone and his associates provides a many times stronger and faster signal of brain cell activity than any other available technology. Read the full published report of this exciting advance in brain science in the journal Cell: http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(13)00898-2   and follow the links below to read what others are saying about the importance and implications of this breakthrough:

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/news_and_events/news_articles/pressrelease_fly_brain_08082013.htm

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/2013/08/12/lighting-up-the-brain-with-arclight/

http://www.biotechniques.com/news/Recording-Brain-Activity-with-ArcLight/biotechniques-345937.html