Switching On the Brain

Gene: the instructions for channelrhodopsin-2.
Delivery: a disabled virus carries the gene into neurons, which then build the channel in their membranes.
Light: a blue flash opens the channels, positive ions flow in, and the neuron reaches threshold.

How a neuron fires, how a green pond alga senses light, and how its light-gated channel became optogenetics, the tool that switches chosen brain cells on and off with light. The story behind the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

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