Optogenetics in humans

We have an unbelievable amount to learn from using optogenetics in humans. Not just about what the brain does, but what it feels like to be a brain when it’s perturbed in precise ways. Most neuroscience tools are behavioral; we poke a circuit and see what the mouse does. But imagine being able to ask the subject directly: What changed in your experience when we activated this region? Does pulsing the retrosplenial cortex with light feel like being on the drug ketamine? Does inhibition of the ACC improve your mood?

That’s the promise of human optogenetics. We get conscious access to our own neural manipulations.

I hope we can do it in humans one day. But there is a problem. Most humans probably aren’t too excited about the first step of the procedure: having their brains infected with a genetically engineered virus that modifies their neurons…