David Dashevsky with Dominique Durand (Biomedical Engineering)

Optogenetic Muscle Fiber Recruitment

Modern neural implants and stimulation devices that restore function to disabled patients utilize controlled currents that interact with voltage-gated ion channels lining a cell membrane. The recently-created field of optogenetics studies a new and alternative form of interacting with excitable cells using light in place of electrical currents. Channelrhodopsin-2, an optically-gated cation channel, opens in response to blue light. Advantages to this approach include the fact that, compared to electrical stimulators, light interferes negligibly with recording electrodes, and the fact that it is possible to control which types of cells will express the channel while electrical stimulators excite everything within their radius. A fiber-coupled diode laser will be used to stimulate a peripheral nerve to measure a muscle recruitment curve and compare optogenetic muscle recruitment characteristics to electrical stimulation.