Single-cell micro- and nano-photonic technologies

Abstract

Since the advent of optogenetics, technology development has focused on new methods to optically interact with single nervous cells. This gave rise to the field of photonic neural interfaces, intended as the set of technologies that can modify light radiation in either a linear or non-linear fashion to control and/or monitor cellular functions. These include the use of plasmonic effects, up-conversion, electron transfer and integrated light steering, with some of them already implemented in vivo. This article will review available approaches in this framework, with a particular emphasis on methods operating at the single-unit level or having the potential to reach single-cell resolution.

Neurophotonic Tools for Microscopic Measurements and Manipulation: Status Report

“…The photonic properties of tapered fibers also offer the opportunity to control nanoscale lightmatter interactions on the fiber surface 659 providing a suitable platform to translate in vivo the many options for enhanced biomolecular interfacing using plasmonic resonances that have been proposed in vitro. 660 These include Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS), refractive index sensing, metal-enhanced fluorescence, and highly localized, ultrafast heat delivery in combination with the modulation of the radiative field through sub-wavelength apertures for light delivery and collection in highly scattering tissue.…”

Optical and genetic tools for in vivo single cell tracking

“…In a previous issue of the Methods for Single Cells series (de la Prida and Gozes, 2019), leading researchers in the field reviewed state-of-the-art approaches to study brain single cells from different perspectives, including genomics (Cembrowski, 2019;Gozes et al, 2019;Sauvage et al, 2019;van den Hurk and Bardy, 2019), electrophysiology (Cid and de la Prida, 2019;Valero and English, 2019), connectivity tracing (Schwarz and Remy, 2019), optophysiology (Katz et al, 2019;Pisano et al, 2019) and automation (Suk et al, 2019). The topic of this new Special Issue is right at the intersection of optical imaging and genetically encoded fluorescent probes.…”

Methods for single-cells

“…Currently available methods to manipulate brain activity now allow for the interrogation and manipulation of microcircuits in a cell-typespecific manner. Ferruccio Pisanello and his collaborators review how exploiting unconventional combinations between optics and photonics allows for control and monitoring of physiological phenomena in a single-cell specific fashion (Pisano et al, 2019). Following this thread, Ilan Lampl and his colleagues discuss how whole-cell recordings can be combined with optogenetics or pharmacology to better understand the origin and integration of synaptic inputs on identified single cells (Katz et al, 2019), and Schwarz and Remy (2019) summarize the latest developments in single-cell transsynaptic tracing that permits dissection of neuronal circuit structure and function.…”