Multifunctional Optical Fibers for Optogenetics

Optogenetics is a technology that integrates optics, genetics, and genetic engineering to accurately control the activity of neurons. With the unique advantages of high spatial, temporal resolution and cell type specificity, optogenetics overcomes many shortcomings of traditional methods to control the activity of cells, and provides a revolutionary research method for the field of neurology. The applications of optogenetics technology are governed by the functional neural probes. In recent years, multifunctional optical fiber probe has attracted much attention due to its photoelectric functional, small size and high biocompatibility. First, the basic functions of optogenetic neural probes, the classification of neural probes and the preparation methods of integrated neural probes are introduced. Second, typical applications of multifunctional optical fiber probes in optogenetics are reviewed. Finally, existing problems and possible solutions of multifunctional optical fiber used in optogenetics are discussed.