RESEARCH FIELD

Neurophotonics

Neurophotonics develops and applies light-based tools to read out and perturb neural activity with cellular and subcellular resolution, overcoming the fundamental sampling limits of electrode-based electrophysiology. Two-photon microscopy through cranial windows now routinely tracks thousands of individually identified neurons across weeks in behaving mice, revealing the population codes underlying navigation, decision-making, and motor learning. Voltage imaging — the holy grail of the field — aims to capture sub-millisecond action potentials in genetically specified neurons across large tissue volumes, a challenge that has driven rapid innovation in both organic and protein-based fluorescent sensors. The neurotechnology industry draws on neurophotonics for the development of high-bandwidth brain-machine interfaces and photostimulation therapies for blindness and Parkinson's disease. Researchers span optics engineering, synthetic biology, and systems neuroscience, often organized around large collaborative platform grants.