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Homemade technology
In 2001, while he was a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Yukiko Goda at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Michael Colicos developed a technology called photoconductive stimulation, which allows him to target specific neurons in a living network of brain cells and fire them. Using brain cells cultured from rats, he grows the networks on wafers made of silicon-an element that, because it conducts electricity, is often used in the manufacture of computers and other electronic equipment. He then uses a laser to shine light on the silicon, thereby causing changes in the conductivity. Because electricity flows through silicon most easily where the light shines, that's where most of the current runs. That current causes the cell to fire. Dr. Colicos can then observe how nerve cells respond: how they change their connections with one another. This process is similar to what happens in our own brain when we learn and remember things.
Dr. Colicos's groundbreaking technology was built, as he puts it, from things you find around the house or the lab: old CD players, Petri dishes, laser pointers, bits of plastic, and the like. It took him six months and five different versions to get everything just right. In fact, a couple of the early prototypes blew up and caught fire, he relates with a grin. His goal now is to use the technology he has developed to study neurological disorders. "The next generation [of the device] will be more advanced. It will be able to index millions of points simultaneously, and stimulate a large number of cells at the same time at different frequencies and rates."