This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(June 2024) |
Polina Olegovna Anikeeva | |
---|---|
Born | 1982 (age 41–42) |
Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University |
Awards | National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2013) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Bioelectronics [1] |
Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Thesis | Physical properties and design of light-emitting devices based on organic materials and nanoparticles (2009) |
Doctoral advisor | Vladimir Bulović [2] |
Other academic advisors | Karl Deisseroth |
Website | bioelectronics |
Polina Olegovna Anikeeva (born 1982) is a Russian-born American materials scientist who is a Professor of Material Science & Engineering as well as Brain & Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). [3] [1] [4] She also holds faculty appointments in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. Her research is centered on developing tools for studying the underlying molecular and cellular bases of behavior and neurological diseases. She was awarded the 2018 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, the 2020 MacVicar Faculty Fellowship at MIT, and in 2015 was named a MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35.
Anikeeva was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia (then Leningrad, Soviet Union), the daughter of mechanical engineers. [5] At 12, Anikeeva was admitted to the Physical-Technical High School. [6] She studied biophysics at St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, where she worked under the guidance of Tatiana Birshtein, [7] a polymer physicist at the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During her undergraduate studies she also completed an exchange program at ETH Zurich [3] where she learned to analyze the structure of proteins using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. [5]
After graduating in 2003, Anikeeva spent a year working in the Physical Chemistry Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory where she developed photovoltaic cells based on quantum dots (QDs). [8] In 2004, she enrolled in the Materials Science and Engineering Ph.D. program at MIT and joined Vladimir Bulović's laboratory of organic electronics. [2] While a graduate student, she was the lead author on a seminal paper [9] that reported a method for generating QD light-emitting devices with electroluminescence tunable over the visible spectrum (460 nm to 650 nm). Her doctoral research was commercialized by the display industry, and acquired by a manufacturer that eventually became part of Samsung. [10]
Anikeeva moved to Stanford University and was appointed to Karl Deisseroth's neuroscience laboratory as a postdoctoral scholar, where she created devices for optical stimulation and recording from brain circuits. [11] The Deisseroth laboratory pioneered Optogenetics, a technique that utilizes light-sensitive ion channels such as Channelrhodopsins to modulate neuronal activity. Anikeeva worked on combining tetrodes, electronic modalities used to record neuronal activity, with optical waveguides [12] to create optetrodes. In Deisseroth’s lab, Anikeeva found a way to improve upon the fiber-optic probes they were using. Through her version, she incorporated multiple electrodes, allowing them to better capture neuronal signals. [13] These optoelectronic devices could be used to record the electrical activity invoked by light delivered through the waveguide. [14] [15] [16]
Anikeeva returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts as an AMAX Career Development Assistant Professor at MIT in 2011. [17] The Anikeeva laboratory, which is also referred to as Bioelectronics@MIT, engineers tools to study and control the nervous system. [18] [19] By pursuing wireless technologies, Anikeeva's group has demonstrated techniques that use magnetic fields and injected nanoparticles to activate cells within mice brains. [5]
Anikeeva's work emphasizes probing the brain with softer materials while integrating several functions into one device. Her research centers around creating a much less invasive way of stimulating brain cells. Her laboratory has two primary research priorities. The first is using the thermal drawing technique, a process originally developed for applications such as fiber optics and textiles, to create flexible polymer, fiber-based neural interfaces. [14] [15] [20] [16] In 2015, Anikeeva and co-workers first reported these flexible neural interfaces, which are also referred to as neural probes, and demonstrated that they could combine optical, electronic, and microfluidic modalities into a single implantable device for chronic interrogation of the nervous system. [14] These fibers are a more advanced and scalable technology than their optetrode precursors. Since then, Anikeeva and her students have created more advanced neural interfaces that can be customized at their NeuroBionics lab [21] and include materials such as photoresists [22] and hydrogels. [23]
Anikeeva's second main research theme is using magnetic fields to wirelessly modulate neuronal activity. Unlike light, which has a limited penetration depth in biological tissues due to attenuation, weak alternating magnetic fields (AMFs) have minimal coupling to biological tissues due to tissues' low conductivity and negligible magnetic permeability. [24] In 2015, Anikeeva and her students demonstrated in a key paper published in Science [25] that magneto-thermal stimulation with magnetic nanomaterials could be used for wireless deep brain stimulation. Follow up studies from the Anikeeva laboratory then extended this concept to stimulate mechanosensitive channels. [26] Anikeeva and her colleagues have also shown that these magnetic nanomaterials can additionally be used to trigger drug delivery, [27] hormone release, [28] and for stimulating acid-sensing ion channels. [24]
Anikeeva's recent work explores the brain-gut interface, advancing the fundamental neuroscience of brain-organ communication. [5] While her previous work centered around the central nervous system, Anikeeva is now exploring communication from the peripheral nervous system.
Particularly intrigued by the signals exchanged between the brain and nervous system, Anikeeva initially focused on understanding how sensory cells in the gut influence the brain and body through neuronal communication and hormone release. [29] Now, Anikeeva emphasizes the reciprocal communication between the body and brain involving their two-way interaction. Her team continues to regulate and explore functions that had previously been attributed solely to central neural control. [29]
In May 2023, Anikeeva co-founded and became the scientific advisor of the NeuroBionics lab. [30] Her first device contains 6 tungsten microelectrodes, an optical channel for optogenetics and fiber photometry, and a fluidic channel. [31]
During the BrainMind Special Forum on Neuromodulation + BCI + AI in June 2024, [32] Anikeeva explained how traditional sharp materials are dangerous when injected into the brain’s soft tissues. To address this, Anikeeva’s team draws inspiration from the flexibility and signal transmission capabilities of natural nerves. [32] Anikeeva's team is already designing stiff fibers that could be threaded into the brain, as well as more delicate, rubbery fibers that are still sturdy enough for the digestive track. [33] Much of Anikeeva's recent work emphasizes the interconnectedness of the brain and body, noting that many neurological conditions also involve gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. However, developing therapies concerning these disorders has proven a recent challenge as it is difficult to deliver them across the blood-brain barrier. [34] Anikeeva's recent work on magnetic stimulation has raised the possibility to avoid the barrier altogether. Her future projects aim to investigate the interplay between digestive health and these neurological conditions. [33]
Anikeeva has given TEDx talks where she discusses the technologies invented in her laboratory and neural interfaces more broadly.
Behavioral neuroscience, also known as biological psychology, biopsychology, or psychobiology, is the application of the principles of biology to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior in humans and other animals.
An engram is a unit of cognitive information imprinted in a physical substance, theorized to be the means by which memories are stored as biophysical or biochemical changes in the brain or other biological tissue, in response to external stimuli.
Neurotechnology encompasses any method or electronic device which interfaces with the nervous system to monitor or modulate neural activity.
Channelrhodopsins are a subfamily of retinylidene proteins (rhodopsins) that function as light-gated ion channels. They serve as sensory photoreceptors in unicellular green algae, controlling phototaxis: movement in response to light. Expressed in cells of other organisms, they enable light to control electrical excitability, intracellular acidity, calcium influx, and other cellular processes. Channelrhodopsin-1 (ChR1) and Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) from the model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii are the first discovered channelrhodopsins. Variants that are sensitive to different colors of light or selective for specific ions have been cloned from other species of algae and protists.
Photostimulation is the use of light to artificially activate biological compounds, cells, tissues, or even whole organisms. Photostimulation can be used to noninvasively probe various relationships between different biological processes, using only light. In the long run, photostimulation has the potential for use in different types of therapy, such as migraine headache. Additionally, photostimulation may be used for the mapping of neuronal connections between different areas of the brain by “uncaging” signaling biomolecules with light. Therapy with photostimulation has been called light therapy, phototherapy, or photobiomodulation.
Neural engineering is a discipline within biomedical engineering that uses engineering techniques to understand, repair, replace, or enhance neural systems. Neural engineers are uniquely qualified to solve design problems at the interface of living neural tissue and non-living constructs.
Gero Andreas Miesenböck is an Austrian scientist. He is currently Waynflete Professor of Physiology and Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (CNCB) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Optogenetics is a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light. This is achieved by expression of light-sensitive ion channels, pumps or enzymes specifically in the target cells. On the level of individual cells, light-activated enzymes and transcription factors allow precise control of biochemical signaling pathways. In systems neuroscience, the ability to control the activity of a genetically defined set of neurons has been used to understand their contribution to decision making, learning, fear memory, mating, addiction, feeding, and locomotion. In a first medical application of optogenetic technology, vision was partially restored in a blind patient with Retinitis pigmentosa.
Edward S. Boyden is an American neuroscientist and entrepreneur at MIT. He is the Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology, and a full member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. He is recognized for his work on optogenetics and expansion microscopy. Boyden joined the MIT faculty in 2007, and continues to develop new optogenetic tools as well as other technologies for the manipulation and analysis of brain structure and activity. He received the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
Karl Alexander Deisseroth is an American scientist. He is the D.H. Chen Foundation Professor of Bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.
Feng Zhang is a Chinese–American biochemist. Zhang currently holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also has appointments with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is most well known for his central role in the development of optogenetics and CRISPR technologies.
Peter Hegemann is a Hertie Senior Research Chair for Neurosciences and a professor of Experimental Biophysics at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He is known for his discovery of channelrhodopsin, a type of ion channels regulated by light, thereby serving as a light sensor. This created the field of optogenetics, a technique that controls the activities of specific neurons by applying light. He has received numerous accolades, including the Rumford Prize, the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.
Magnetogenetics is a medical research technique whereby magnetic fields are used to affect cell function.
Kay M. Tye is an American neuroscientist and professor and Wylie Vale Chair in the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. Her research has focused on using optogenetics to identify connections in the brain that are involved in innate emotion, motivation and social behaviors.
Viviana Grădinaru is a Romanian-American neuroscientist who is a Professor of Neuroscience and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She develops neurotechnologies including optogenetics CLARITY tissue clearing, and gene delivery vectors. She has been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award. In 2019 she was a finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. In 2020 she was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science by the Vilcek Foundation.
Lisa Gunaydin is an American neuroscientist and assistant professor at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California San Francisco. Gunaydin helped discover optogenetics in the lab of Karl Deisseroth and now uses this technique in combination with neural and behavioral recordings to probe the neural circuits underlying emotional behaviors.
Ilana B. Witten is an American neuroscientist and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. Witten studies the mesolimbic pathway, with a focus on the striatal neural circuit mechanisms driving reward learning and decision making.
Jessica Cardin is an American neuroscientist who is an associate professor of neuroscience at Yale University School of Medicine. Cardin's lab studies local circuits within the primary visual cortex to understand how cellular and synaptic interactions flexibly adapt to different behavioral states and contexts to give rise to visual perceptions and drive motivated behaviors. Cardin's lab applies their knowledge of adaptive cortical circuit regulation to probe how circuit dysfunction manifests in disease models.
Chet T. Moritz is an American neural engineer, neuroscientist, physiologist, and academic researcher. He is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and holds joint appointments in the School of Medicine departments of Rehabilitation Medicine, and Physiology & Biophysics at the University of Washington.
Fiber photometry is a calcium imaging technique that captures 'bulk' or population-level calcium (Ca2+) activity from specific cell-types within a brain region or functional network in order to study neural circuits Population-level calcium activity can be correlated with behavioral tasks, such as spatial learning, memory recall and goal-directed behaviors. The technique involves the surgical implantation of fiber optics into the brains of living animals. The benefits to researchers are that optical fibers are simpler to implant, less invasive and less expensive than other calcium methods, and there is less weight and stress on the animal, as compared to miniscopes. It also allows for imaging of multiple interacting brain regions and integration with other neuroscience techniques. The limitations of fiber photometry are low cellular and spatial resolution, and the fact that animals must be securely tethered to a rigid fiber bundle, which may impact the naturalistic behavior of smaller mammals such as mice.
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