Recent work examining astrocytic physiology centers on fluorescence imaging, due to
development of sensitive fluorescent indicators and observation of spatiotemporally complex …

Controlling drug activity with light offers the possibility of enhancing pharmacological selectivity
with spatial and temporal regulation, thus enabling highly localized therapeutic effects …

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a hub for cognitive control, and dopamine profoundly influences
its functions. In other brain regions, astrocytes sense diverse neurotransmitters and …

Light-regulated drugs allow remotely photoswitching biological activity and enable plausible
therapies based on small molecules. However, only freely diffusible photochromic ligands …

Synthetic photochromic compounds can be designed to control a variety of proteins and
their biochemical functions in living cells, but the high spatiotemporal precision and tissue …

OptoGluNAM4.1, a negative allosteric modulator (NAM) of metabotropic glutamate receptor
4 (mGlu 4 ) contains a reactive group that covalently binds to the receptor and a blue-light-…

Phenylazopyridines are photoisomerizable compounds with high potential to control
biological functions with light. We have obtained a series of phenylazopyridines with light …

Chronic orofacial pain encompasses a range of debilitating conditions, however in contrast
to other body regions, few animal models are available to investigate mechanisms and …

A new azobenzene-based photoswitch, 2, has been designed to enable optical control of
ionotropic glutamate receptors in neurons via sensitized two-photon excitation with NIR light. In …

The physiological activity of proteins is often studied with loss-of-function genetic
approaches, but the corresponding phenotypes develop slowly and can be confounding. …