Optogenetics: application to central autonomic regulatory pathways

In this short article, optogenetics is discussed from the perspective of optically activated ion channels. Recent work has taken the discovery of the light-activated ion channels and pumps that occur naturally in multiple species and modified their properties to enable an arsenal of tools for understanding the function of specific neuronal cells group in the intact mammalian nervous system. The combination with transgenic approaches to provide a high specificity of cellular transduction makes optogenetics an extremely powerful technique. To illustrate this in the context of central autonomic function, we provide three vignettes of recent research that increase our knowledge of the function of C1 and C3 neurons and the modulation of sympathetic vasomotor activity by the pre-Bötzinger complex.