Reversible and gain modulation of neuronal responses and sensorimotor behavior by mid-infrared stimulation

Abstract

Neuromodulation serves as a cornerstone for brain sciences and clinical applications. Mid-infrared stimulation (MIRS) has been recently reported to cause non-thermal modulation of brain functions. However little knowledge of mechanisms hampers its application. Here we bridge across ion channels, neuronal signals, and behavioral performances associated with sensorimotor transformation to provide evidence of how the alternation of neuronal activity by MIRS guides the change of behavioral performance in awake-behaving pigeons. We compared effects on visually-guided eye movements by applying MIRS and electrical stimulation (ES) in the pretectal nucleus lentiformis mesencephali (nLM). Distinct from ES, we found a specific gain modulation of MIRS to alter behavior in a manner of the strength of visual inputs. Our simultaneous extracellular recordings showed that MIRS can excite and inhibit the neuronal activity in the same pretectal neuron based on its ongoing sensory responsiveness levels in awake-behaving animals. We further applied computational simulations and found that MIRS can modulate the carbonyl group (-C=O) enriched on the potassium channel to resonate, and could affect action potential generation, alter neuronal responses to sensory inputs and then guide behavior. Our findings suggest that MIRS could be a promising approach for brain researches and neurological diseases, with gene free manipulation.