Integrated Optogenetic and Electrophysiological Dissection of Local Cortical Circuits In Vivo

The recent development of optical methods for controlling the activity of specific populations of neurons holds tremendous promise for understanding the roles of neural subtypes in local circuits, a major goal of systems neuroscience. Optogenetic tools, in combination with electrophysiology, allow identification and manipulation of specific groups of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in active neural networks in vivo in a spatially and temporally precise manner. Here, we provide a detailed description of methods for integrating optogenetics with more traditional electrophysiological approaches as a means to probe these complex interactions.