Novel approaches to monitor and manipulate single neurons in vivo

Abstract

As yet, most in vivo records of cellular activity in the vertebrate brain come from unidentified cells, and most manipulations of neural activity affect the whole brain or large populations of neurons in particular brain regions. The combined application of the optical, electrophysiological, and genetic techniques outlined here will allow us to refine our focus to the structure and function of identified neurons in the intact brain. This is the only means by which we can determine with any precision the cellular basis of brain function.