Nanosensors shine a light on brain chemistry

Chemists are developing new sensors to track brain chemistry. ↓↓More info and references below↓↓

In diagnosing and treating neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases like depression, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease, doctors rely on evaluating a patient’s symptoms rather than directly analyzing brain chemistry. Although a variety of tools can study the brain, they are too imprecise, indirect, or invasive to probe the brain at the molecular level. So chemists are developing optical sensors that they hope will one day provide a clearer picture of how symptoms relate to changes in brain chemistry. In this video, host Kerri Jansen explores a trend in sensing dopamine in brain tissue using new synthetic and protein-based probes. Markita Landry shares her team’s progress with carbon nanotubes, and Lin Tian gives us a glimpse of tools based on genetically modified proteins.

Special thanks to Jill Venton (University of Virginia) and Christopher Ross (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) for helpful discussions in reporting this story.

Read more:
Imaging striatal dopamine release using a nongenetically encoded near infrared fluorescent
catecholamine nanosensor | Science Advances

Ultrafast neuronal imaging of dopamine dynamics with designed genetically encoded sensors | Science

Meet the Janelia chemist crafting glowing molecular tools for neuroscientists | C&EN

Method Provides 3-D Map Of Dopamine Signaling In The Brain | C&EN

A chemical map of the mind | C&EN

“Morning Mandolin” by Chris Haugen is from the YouTube Audio Library

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[woonawoona]

great video. I like that you don't dumb the research down