• Biophotonics and waves
  • Technologies for in vivo biology on animal models

ULTRASTIM – Large scale stimulation and imaging of neuronal ensembles at single cell resolution using acousto-optic methods

Project lead by  Stéphane Dieudonné,  Brice Bathellier
Industrial partners  Karthala System
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Abstract

Most of our understanding of the brain is based on sparse correlative evidence, from which theoretical models of neural circuits functions are inferred. Testing of these functions remains difficult because of the lack of techniques to specifically manipulate the activity of neural circuits at cellular resolution and sufficiently large scales. Pioneering advances have been made thanks to holographic techniques for optogenetic stimulation of few tens of neurons in the brain of living animals, but these techniques cannot easily be scaled up.

In this project, we aim to experimentally demonstrate that light shaping and ultrafast beam pointing of single laser pulses using acousto-optic modulators enable the stimulation of several hundreds to a thousand neurons in the mouse brain.

This new technique will be used by expert teams in Paris to generate precise auditory perceptions by activations of large neural ensembles in the auditory cortex of behaving mice, and to probe functional connectivity in cerebellum during a motor behavior.

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Call

Plate-forme Transcriptome et Epigénome

As a response to the : Call for projects 2019 : Equipment support for the development of innovative technologies to support research in Life Sciences

Call for projets 2019 : Equipment support

Details & Selected Projects
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Teams

  • Inhibitory Transmission

    CNRS - French National Centre for Scientific Research
    École Normale Supérieure
    IBENS
    Inserm
    PSL University

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  • Auditory system dynamics and multisensory processing

    Institut de l'Audition
    Paris Saclay University
    Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience (NeuroPSI)

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