Optical vagus nerve modulation of heart and respiration via heart-injected retrograde AAV.

ABSTRACT: Vagus nerve stimulation has shown many benefits for disease therapies but current approaches involve imprecise electrical stimulation that gives rise to off-target effects, while the functionally relevant pathways remain poorly understood. One method to overcome these limitations is the use of optogenetic techniques, which facilitate targeted neural communication with light-sensitive actuators (opsins) and can be targeted to organs of interest based on the location of viral delivery. Here, we tested whether retrograde adeno-associated virus (rAAV2-retro) injected in the heart can be used to selectively express opsins in vagus nerve fibers controlling cardiac function. Furthermore, we investigated whether perturbations in cardiac function could be achieved with photostimulation at the cervi

SUBMITTER: Fontaine AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7878800 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature