Advanced Neuroscience Technologies

The neurosciences are not unusual in science in having periodically been transformed by the advent of new techniques. This chapter highlights three examples of technologies that offer considerable promise for the future. Firstly, the widespread use of non-invasive human brain imaging has transformed cognitive neuroscience. Instead of relying on techniques from experimental psychology in the analysis of neurological patients, human brain imaging allows one to derive a spatial picture of brain activation in normal subjects as they undertake different tasks. Secondly, single-cell and multiple single-neuron recording technologies are advancing to the point where one can simultaneously record from large ensembles of cells, sometimes in different brain areas. In this way data can be obtained about how the firing of one or more cells may influence or be influenced by that of other cells. Finally, optical imaging provides a new window on the brain, enabling microscopic techniques to reveal the molecular dynamics of activity within individual neurons. A wide variety of optical techniques are available, with the most recent using two-photon confocal microscopy. These three techniques alone cannot transform neuroscience. Many other techniques are also very important, ranging from novel behavioral techniques through to targeted manipulations of individual genes.