Light controls cerebral blood flow in naive animals

Ravi L Rungta, Bruno-Félix Osmanski, Davide Boido, Mickael Tanter and Serge Charpak ()
Additional contact information
Ravi L Rungta: INSERM U1128, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopies, Université Paris Descartes
Bruno-Félix Osmanski: INSERM U1128, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopies, Université Paris Descartes
Davide Boido: INSERM U1128, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopies, Université Paris Descartes
Mickael Tanter: Institut Langevin, Espci Paris, CNRS UMR 7587, INSERM U979, PSL Research University
Serge Charpak: INSERM U1128, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopies, Université Paris Descartes

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Optogenetics is increasingly used to map brain activation using techniques that rely on functional hyperaemia, such as opto-fMRI. Here we test whether light stimulation protocols similar to those commonly used in opto-fMRI or to study neurovascular coupling modulate blood flow in mice that do not express light sensitive proteins. Combining two-photon laser scanning microscopy and ultrafast functional ultrasound imaging, we report that in the naive mouse brain, light per se causes a calcium decrease in arteriolar smooth muscle cells, leading to pronounced vasodilation, without excitation of neurons and astrocytes. This photodilation is reversible, reproducible and energy-dependent, appearing at about 0.5 mJ. These results impose careful consideration on the use of photo-activation in studies involving blood flow regulation, as well as in studies requiring prolonged and repetitive stimulations to correct cellular defects in pathological models. They also suggest that light could be used to locally increase blood flow in a controlled fashion.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14191 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14191

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14191

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().