Brain research gets a boost from mosquitoes

Can a protein found in a mosquito lead to a better understanding of the workings of our own brains? Prof. Ofer Yizhar and his team in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Neurobiology Department took a light-sensitive protein derived from mosquitoes and used it to devise an improved method for investigating the messages that are passed from neuron to neuron in the brains of mice. This method, reported today in Neuron, could potentially help scientists solve age-old cerebral mysteries that could pave the way for new and improved therapies to treat neurological and psychiatric conditions.