Syllabus
1. Introduction to optogenetics: the lecture will give a brief introduction to the topic, reviewing all the major steps needed to establish the optogenetic methodology. The lecture will evaluate the reasons to move from pharmacotherapies to a “light-gated” neuronal activation with the aim of a better spatiotemporal causal control over neuronal signaling.
2. The world before optogenetics: the lecture will evaluate more in detail the pharmacotherapies related to the major psychopatologies such as Major Depressive Disorders, Anxiety, Addiction, Schizophrenia, and the neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. Moreover, new forms of therapeutic brain stimulation will be introduced (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Deep Brain Stimulation, mainly).
3. The steps to reach optogenetics: the lecture will present the main authors who contributed to the development of the optogenetic methodology. Extensively, the lecture will consider authors such as Francis Crick, Rafael Yuste, and Boris Zemelman introducing their seminal works.
4. Deisseroth and Boyden: the lecture will be centered on the two major authors who developed the final stage of Optogenetic. The lecture will introduce the first experiments that brought the authors to reach the final goal of causally exciting neurons by using an external source of light.
5. Hosting a Geneticist: the lecture will be guided by a geneticist and moderated by the teacher. Particularly, the guest geneticist will introduce topics related to the genetics of optogenetics. Main topics will be related to Gene Therapies, Cre-recombinase technology, Transgenic animal models.
6. Hosting a Physicist: the lecture will be guided by a physicist and moderated by the teacher. Particularly, the guest physicist will introduce topics related to optic physics. Main topics will be related to laser and LED differences, pulsed and continuous wave light, optic applications in medical and biotechnological fields.
7. How to work with optogenetics: the lecture will introduce the students to the reality of in vivo Optogenetics. It will be related to the role of:
1) AdenoAssociatedViruses (AAV) as vectors for the several rhodopsins;
2) optic fibers and how to make them;
3) microsurgeries on rodents in order to perform the AAV transfections and the optic fiber implantations.
8. The other ways to use optogenetics: the lecture will be focused on the several uses of optogenetics in several fields of investigations using in vitro, or in vivo, or in silico applications. The teacher will revise few examples of the above-mentioned applications in optogenetics in neuroscience research.
9. Chemogenetics: the lecture will be focused on chemogenetics as an alternative to optogenetics. The teacher will present differences, pros and cons of the two methodologies in the light of their use in neuroscience field.
10. Clinical Applications of optogenetics: the lecture will introduce the students to the several clinical applications of optogenetics as a therapeutical alternative to pharmacotherapies. Specifically, cardiac optogenetics and optoelectronic devices will be presented and discussed thoroughly the lecture.
11. Optogenetics “hands-on”: the lecture will be performed at the Dept. of Neurophysiology of Memory, at the Institute of Physiology at Czech Academy of Sciences. The teacher will guide the students through a practical lecture where they will have “hands on” on optic fibers making, visiting the experimental rooms, and familiarization with computer software dedicated to animal tracking.
12. Trends in Optogenetics: the lecture will consider the very recent trends in Optogenetics. The teacher will discuss with the students two research papers of recent publication. The advantage of this lecture is to give to the students always an updated state of the art about optogenetics. Moreover, this lecture will have every year new papers to be discussed.
Annotation
The main aim of this course is to introduce the optogenetics methodology, from the beginning of its development to the final implementations and diverse applications. The teacher will explain the reasons of introducing such technique in neuroscience; how many time and efforts took to reach the high-level quality of the technique in these days; and finally the several applications of the technique. Since optogenetics is a new complex and “cross sectional” method that includes several different techniques, the course will host a physicist and a geneticist.
Finally, a “hands-on” lecture will be presented where the students will be invited at the Institute of Physiology to overlook all the steps needed in “in vivo optogenetics”, and to create their own optic fiber under the teacher supervision.