Nanomaterials have emerged as an essential tool for the understanding of cellular level mechanism in the fields of biology and medical science. Recently, researchers have been studying the regulation of neuronal activity using plasmonic nanoparticles and light, and it has been reported that photothermal effects could lead to both excitation and inhibition of neuronal cells. So far, only a few photothermal transducers have been applied to modulate neural activity. In this paper, we synthesized biocompatible gold nanostars (AuNS) which generate heat by absorbing near-infrared (NIR) light. And we used the AuNS to inhibit the activity of neurons through light stimulation. We have demonstrated that AuNS inhibits the neural activity by NIR laser in both chip-attached mode and cell-attached mode. We also confirmed the suppression of single neuron signal by using digital micromirror device (DMD) set up. This approach is possible to inhibit the neural firing by controlling the intensity of light, and overcome the disadvantages of conventional electrochemical stimulation methods. This method of NIR-mediated stimulating neurons using light sensitive AuNS will be a powerful tool for neuromodulation researches and neuroscience studies.

中文翻译：

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利用等离子光热效应控制金纳米星介导的神经活动

纳米材料已经成为理解生物学和医学领域中细胞水平机制的重要工具。最近，研究人员已经研究了使用等离激元纳米粒子和光调节神经元活动的方法，并且据报道，光热效应可能导致神经元细胞的激发和抑制。到目前为止，只有少数光热换能器用于调节神经活动。在本文中，我们合成了生物相容性金纳米星（AuNS），它们通过吸收近红外（NIR）光产生热量。并且我们使用了AuNS通过光刺激来抑制神经元的活动。我们已经证明，AuNS在芯片连接模式和细胞连接模式下均会通过NIR激光抑制神经活动。我们还证实了通过使用数字微镜设备（DMD）设置可以抑制单个神经元信号。这种方法可以通过控制光的强度来抑制神经放电，并克服常规电化学刺激方法的缺点。这种使用光敏AuNS的NIR介导的刺激神经元的方法将成为神经调节研究和神经科学研究的有力工具。