Researchers to study how the brain ’rewires itself’
A researcher from UCL is part of a US-led team investigating how the brain and its microcircuitry react to physiological changes and what could be done to encourage its recovery from injury. The project will explore the use of a new generation of 'optogenetic' devices small enough to be implanted in the brain, where they would simulate the function of damaged tissue. The Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery (REPAIR) project, funded by the US government, involves researchers from UCL, Stanford, Brown, and the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). Together their expertise spans neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry to semiconductor micro- and optoelectronics, statistical signal processing, machine learning, and brain modelling. REPAIR will explore the potential of an emerging technology invented at Stanford called optogenetics. The technique allows researchers to genetically engineer specific types of cells in brain circuits to turn on or off in response to pulses of light flickering as fast as a thousand times a second. The researchers will use optogenetics to produce completely reversible 'injuries' in the brains of research animals by temporarily turning off parts of the brain.
