Jerusalem, January 25, 2010 – Passengers on the Tel-Aviv Haifa Israel Railways route on Monday, Feb 1, will be treated to an intriguing lecture on “Breakthrough: Light Rays in Service of the Brain” by Idan Segev, the David and Inez Myers Professor of Neural Computation at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

Prof. Segev is the former head of the Center for Neural Computation at the Hebrew University and today is involved with the “Blue Brain” project which is working on the development of a computer model that will shed new light on the workings of the human brain.

 

This lecture is part of the new “Scientists on the Train” series of lectures initiated recently by the Hebrew University on various topics of interest to the general public. This will be the third in the series, which will be continued in the current year on a variety of Israel Railways lines. Prof. Segev’s lectures will be given on the train leaving the Tel Aviv University station for Haifa at 9:25 a.m. on Feb. 1 and again on the train leaving Haifa at 10:22 for the Tel Aviv University station.

 

Prof. Segev commented that “there is today equipment which makes it possible to stimulate the brain through electrical impulses and carry out medical corrections. For example, through controlled electrical charges one can regulate areas of the brain where the electrical impulses are not regular and thus enable the brain to return to normal function. It is also possible, he said, that electrical impulses from the brain can be directed to operate a robotic hand through thought. These are just two examples of scientific breakthroughs in the field in recent years, he said.

 

Now, he continued, there are also new developments involving brain stimulation through the use of light rays.  It is possible to engineer brain cells (thus far only in animals) that will be sensitive to light, and thus, through the use of light rays to stimulate these cells in a highly specific manner.

 

Further developments using this technique, called “optogenetics,” will enable correction of retina problems and illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy and even depression – all of which are connected with faulty electrical activity in the brain, he said.