What if you could treat conditions ranging from Alzheimer ’s to blindness , all with a wink of light ? Researchers think it ’s potential — and they be after on using tiny particles called quantum dots to do it .
Einstein stimulation can be incredibly tricky . Performing it from outside the top dog is in force , but does n’t give you very much specificity when it number to turning on a specific brain region ; stick electrodes on the brain itself offer you precision , but it ’s also fantastically invasive .
of late , researchers have sought out solutions to these problems with methods that rely on light , in hopes that they can be used to stimulate head activity with a high grade of precision without having to crack your skull open . decent now , the bombilation - word in light - liaise brain input isoptogenetics , which look incredibly hopeful , but relies on genetic modifications that are still considered too risky to try in mankind .
But quantum Department of Transportation — which also bank on light , but not transmitted tinkering — may put up a way of life around some of optogenetics ’ limitations . In a paper published inthe up-to-the-minute publication of Biomedical Optics Express , investigator Lih Lin and her colleagues have show for the first time that quantum dots can be used to control the activity of psyche cells . New Scientist ’s Catherine de Lange summarise the investigator ’ experimentation :
[ Lin ’s team ] cultivated prostate cancer cell on a film covered with quantum Department of Transportation . The cell tissue layer of the cancer cadre were positioned next to the dot . The team then shone light onto the nanoparticles .
vim from the light excites electrons within the quantum dot which have the surrounding area to become negatively buck [ see diagram featured here ] . This make some of the cancer cells ’ ion channels , which are intermediate by a voltage , to open up , allow ions to rush in or out of the cells .
In nerve cells , open up ion channels is a crucial step in father action potentials – the signals by which the cells communicate in the brain . If the voltage change is declamatory enough , an activeness potency is generated .
When Lin ’s team repeated their experiment with nervus cells , they found that stimulating the quantum dots do ion channels to afford and the nerve cell to fire .
For quantum dots to work in the treatment of disease like Alzheimer ’s , they would have to first be delivered to the brain . Believe it or not , this is a process that can actually be do intravenously , and would n’t pose much of a proficient trouble ( at least in possibility ) . The major vault faced by cortical quantum acid is in reality the light author ; i.e. how does one expose these nanoparticles to light once they ’re insert away inside your brain tissue paper ?
This challenge mean that brainiac - ground quantum dots may still be a slipway off — but other parts of your body are significantly easier for light to access . Your retina , for example , engulf brightness of course . What ’s more , ion channels — which , you ’ll recall , the quantum dots act on — play a polar role in regulating eye sight . If quantum dots prove capable of reactivating damaged retinal cubicle , says de Lange , they could even be used to cover sightlessness .
The researchers ’ finding are published in the previous issue ofBiomedical Optics Express(No subscription necessitate ) .
Read more over onNew Scientist
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Top image viaShutterstock ; Quantum dot diagram viaNew Scientist
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