Ed Boyden: Seeing very small things
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Neuroscientist Ed Boyden says that there is a moral imperative to demystify the brain in order to address diseases that affect over a billion people. To do so, however, scientists must map seemingly infinite, tiny connections. Boyden discusses how his lab is using the same technology used in diapers to make the brain’s mysteries visible.
Ed Boyden is Associate Professor of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, at the MIT Media Lab and the MIT McGovern Institute. He leads the Synthetic Neurobiology Group, which develops tools for analyzing and engineering the circuits of the brain. These technologies, created often in interdisciplinary collaborations, include 'optogenetic' tools, which enable the activation and silencing of neural circuit elements with light, 3-D microfabricated neural interfaces that enable control and readout of neural activity, and robotic methods for automatically recording intracellular neural activity and performing single-cell analyses in the living brain.
