Good germs, controlled emotions and mini-piles: the reading recommendations from the science department

With the help of optogenetics, the targeted activation of individual cells or circuits using laser light, they switch on certain brain regions in mice, for example, which are responsible for pleasant feelings.

The rodents then repeatedly look for a certain place where they experience the activation.

However, neural networks that drive mice to frenzy can also be armed.

Researchers have also shown that, as if from the senses, rodents manipulated in this way attack their conspecifics.

A creepy idea, because it means that my free will could also be overridden by a few flashes of light.

Researcher Deisseroth also finds this scary - and fascinating.

Because the knowledge of the exact function of individual cell groups could result in therapies, for example for certain psychiatric illnesses.

"Now we can get down to it," he said in an interview with SPIEGEL, "to develop specific drugs that attack precisely these cells."

Heartfelt,

Yours Julia Koch

I also recommend you:

Controlled feelings:

Can emotions such as anger and fear be switched on and off in a targeted manner?

In an interview with SPIEGEL, US neurobiologist Karl Deisseroth explains that this is theoretically possible.

Good germs:

Jena doctors are developing new therapies for autoimmune diseases such as ulcerative colitis.

Intestinal bacteria, obtained from the faeces of healthy people, serve as the active ingredient.

Beautiful pictures:

In Lübeck researchers are investigating the work of a Renaissance artist using the latest infrared technology - and are making amazing discoveries in the process.

Hope for the nuclear

industry

The nuclear industry is trying to distinguish itself as a climate savior.

New mini-power plants should be safer and make CO₂-free nuclear power cheaper.

But will they still be finished in time?

Cooling by volcanoes:

violent eruptions can lower the temperature on earth.

How does it work and can the effect occur through currently active volcanoes such as the Cumbre Vieja on La Palma?

Sitting Bull's braid:

He was the tribal chief and medicine man of the Hunkpapa-Lakota-Sioux, best known as a symbol of resistance by the Native Americans.

A great-grandson is fighting for a new burial place for Sitting Bull. The relationship is now confirmed by genetic analyzes - the material for this comes from a braid of the chief.

Picture of the week

The launch vehicle's fire tail was reflected in the water at Cape Canaveral

when the "Lucy" space probe was launched into space in mid-October.

The mission goes to asteroids orbiting Jupiter and is the first of its kind in the history of space travel.

Lucy will travel nearly four billion miles.

It could pass a Jupiter asteroid for the first time in 2027, with four more flybys to follow by 2033.

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