Understanding Anxiety Through Optogenetics

Everyone experiences anxiety in their life at some point, while it's presenting to a group of people or trying to fit in at a new school. People have more anxiety problems than others but anxiety is something that affects all of us. Anxiety has always been a problem with people and there has never been an easy cure for it. It has been a difficulty for scientists to try to find a treatment but they are making improvements toward it.

Now, using optogenetics which is a technique where scientists use light to switch neurons on and off. Neuroscientists have been able to limit nervousness in mice by switching off certain neurons. First, they had a negative memory form when the mice received a shock. Afterwards there was a positive memory formed when the male mice were with the female mice. They joined the two together by shocking them around the females, and the scientists discovered when they took them away from the females the shock was less painful. This shows how the mice were able to change their emotional memory without bringing the mice to where the memory took place.

The scientists also found out differences with the neurons in the amygdala and hippocampus. The amgydala is used for linking emotions to memory and the hippocampus is more for creating new memories. The emotional memories in the amygdala did not change at all, but in the hippocampus the memories were able to be more or less negative. The findings in this research can help provide additional information on the development of drugs, gene therapy, or other cures for mental illnesses. The results can also help out on understanding anxiety more in people. The only problem is how optogenetics can not be used in humans so all the information has to be from results in mice. At the end of the article, the writer stated how technology is advancing so quickly that scientists are optimistic about using optogenetics in humans.

Works Cited.

Belluck, Pam. "Using Light Technique, Scientists Find Dimmer Switch for Memories in Mice." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/science/scientists-switch-bad-memories-for-good-ones-in-mice.html?rref=collection%2Fundefined%2Fundefined

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