--Must See--

Bioinformatics Summer Internship 2024 With Hands-On-Training + Project / Dissertation - 30 Days, 3 Months & 6 Months Duration

MSU researchers’s Tool developed for studying the Brain

A Montana State University Researcher is in a team that is developing an improved tool for understanding the workings of the brain.The tool, called genetically encoded voltage indicators, or GEVIs, enables researchers to see the electrical activity of individual neural cells “light up” when active.

“Imagine staring at a living brain and watching the billions of cells within it twinkling like stars as they talk with one another. This has been the dream of neuroscientists for many years,” said Thom Hughes, a professor in MSU’s Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience in the College of Letters and Science.

Hughes and colleagues at the Yale University School of Medicine and Korea Institute of Science and Technology summarized recent advances in GEVIs in the article named Toward Better Genetically Encoded Sensors of Membrane Potential, published in Trends in Neurosciences.

GEVIs are made by fusing the genes that cause fluorescence from jelly fish and other sea creatures to the genes encoding voltage-sensitive proteins. The final product, a synthetic fusion gene, can then be introduced into neurons through a virus, or stably inserted into the genome of a mouse or rat. The results are nerve cells

that flash when the cells are involved in a thought.

Hughes’s Molecular Motion Lab at MSU has been working since 1993 in the field and has pioneered the production of the new generation of GEVIs described in the Trends in Neurosciences’ article. The GEVIs Hughes’ lab produces for research at Yale University School of Medicine and other universities is helping advance brain research around the globe.

“Making these genes is not trivial; it involves a great deal of synthetic DNA work, which is what my lab does, coupled with extensive testing in many different kinds of neurons,” Hughes said.

“The work begins here in Bozeman, where the team builds new genes. The DNA is then shipped to laboratories all over the world that test the resulting protein sensors in many different kinds of cells. Video conferencing with sites in South Korea, Japan, Washington D.C. and Paris makes it possible to share results quickly, redesign promising prototypes, and then my lab goes back to work making the next generation,” Hughes said.

Another important advancement of the group has been the development of specialized optics, typically inserted into the brain using tiny probes, to observe in real-time how a small set of neurons light up when a rat navigates a maze, for example.

“We’re slowly getting bigger and brighter signals,” said Hughes.
Hughes and his international research team hope to soon use GEVIs to simultaneously record thousands of neuron interactions during complex behavior or thought.

“My generation was raised thinking that we could never really understand how the circuits in the brain work, that the problem was just too hard,” Hughes said. “Now we’re at a really special moment in history, because we actually have the tools and the willpower to try.”

Peace-lover, creative, smart and intelligent. Prapti is a foodie, music buff and a travelholic. After leaving a top-notch full time corporate job, she now works as an Online Editor for Biotecnika. Keen on making a mark in the scientific publishing industry, she strives to find a work-life balance. Follow her for more updates!