Dr. Diego Bohórquez

We have done it in the laboratory, and consistently they change their food preferences, their food choices.

So in recent years, we have been

we have been studying that system.

And I will tell you that in 2022, this is another important contextual piece that we have not gotten to it.

So after we found and we described that these cells were connecting to the nervous system and that they were sending information up to the brain very rapidly, the challenge was, well, if this is a sense,

what behavior is affecting, right?

Like how is it that is affecting the responses of the organism?

And that took a little bit of a technical hurdle.

And here is where optogenetics comes in.

Yeah, so optogenetics in 2005, Professor Carl Dyseroth, Ed Boyden, and other scientists had been able to make this dream of an experiment, which was isolate the genes that encode for these opsins that are sensitive to specific wavelengths of light and put them into neurons.

And now by turning that light, they could make the neuron activate.

And then ultimately then later on, they went on to describe that that could be used to control specific cells that are regulating behavior.

And then by that define what cells are orchestrating certain type of behaviors like movement, food intake, thirst, anxiety, so on and so forth.

So in 2014, we began trying to adapt that technology to the gut.

And very quickly, we realized that the way that light was brought into the brain was through a fiber optic cable that was rigid.

And in the brain, you know, it helps that it's actually rigid.

But in the gut, it doesn't help because the gut is constantly moving and so on and so forth.

So it's not compatible for running those experiments.

And here's where I usually say, like, you know, we really don't know what is going on because some forces, like, move around us.

And in 2017, Professor Polina Nikieva from MIT came to give a talk at Duke.