computational modeling of thermal effects in optogenetic neurostimulation

Optogenetics is an advanced optical tool in neuroscience research. however, light stimulation in optogenetic experiments may also affect neural function by generating heat. in this paper, the effect of increasing the temperature of the brain tissue was studied during light stimulation. the hodgkin-huxley model and the hippocampal pyramidal cell model have been used to investigate the effect of temperature on spike neurons. the modeling results show that irradiation of brain tissue by pulsed laser with a frequency of 40 hz, the duty cycle of 90% and wavelength of 593 nm at a distance of 10 μm from the tip of the fiber, for 60 seconds with a power of 1 and 40 mw leads to the temperature change from 37 °c to 39 °c. the obtained results show that the laser intensity decreases to zero at a distance of 1 mm from the tip of a fiber, which is absorbed by the tissue and causes a temperature rise of 2 °c that can increase the spike rate of neurons by 16.6%.