“…While this approach has been very powerful in the brain (Adamantidis et al, 2015; Boyden, 2015; Deisseroth, 2015), and peripheral nervous system (Copits et al, 2016; Iyer et al, 2014; Montgomery et al, 2016), the application of optogenetic control in the mammalian spinal cord has been largely restricted to ex vivo slice preparations (Carr and Zachariou, 2014; Dougherty et al, 2013; Foster et al, 2015; Hägglund et al, 2013, 2010; Talpalar et al, 2011; Wang and Zylka, 2009; Yang et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2014), which do not allow for direct analysis of the behavioral consequences of neural control.…”