Ko Matsui
Assistant Professor,National Institute for Physiological Sciences,
National Institutes of Natural Sciences

Glial cells occupy a large majority of cells in the brain, yet, their role in brain function and information processing is far from being known. Part of the ambiguity arises from the inability to directly manipulate glial cell activation with conventional electrophysiological methods.

In this project, various methods of precise optical control of cell activation will be explored. The effect of reciprocal interaction between neurons and glial cells on synaptic transmission, neural network, and behavior will be evaluated.

Homepage URL： http://www.nips.ac.jp/dcs/