Accessible Optogenetic Technologies for Non-human Primate Research

Abstract

Neurological diseases, disorders, and injuries have profound negative impacts on patients, communities, and nations. To address this staggering need, engineers and experts from a variety of backgrounds have dedicated themselves to studying the brain in both healthy and diseased states. Neurostimulation has been a promising avenue for generating therapies, and in recent years optogenetic stimulation has piqued the interest of researchers because of its unique neurostimulation advantages, such as cell-type specificity. To bring optogenetic neurostimulation therapies to the clinic, optogenetic research in highly translational non-human primates (NHPs) is essential. This is a growing field of research. Unique challenges have been identified by early adopters of optogenetics in NHPs, particularly at the cm2 -scales necessary to probe or stimulate multiple brain regions and understand the brain in the context of its internal interconnectivity. In this work, I describe a collection of methods designed to make optogenetic technologies more accessible to NHP researchers. My methods address NHP surgical planning for NHPs, optically-oriented electrode array design for NHPs, chronic optogenetic NHP experiments, models of optogenetic viral vector convection-enhanced delivery for NHPs, and a behavioral training system for NHPs.