A low-cost, high-efficiency LED probe compatible with optical fiber port for optogenetics

Optogenetics, combining optical techniques with genetics study and aiming at probing the neural circuits of intact mammals and other animals, has rapidly become an essential technique in neuroscience. Typically, the awake behaving optogenetics experiments are conducted either by inserting into the brain a remote-laser-tethered optical fiber or by implanting a light emitting diode (LED) that connects to a remote power source wirelessly. However, the tethered fiber presents several problems, such as the mice biting the optical fiber and restricting the range of mice movement. The implanted LED solutions successfully solve these problems by moving the source of light close to the brain and implanting an LED mounted on a flexible substrate into the brain. Nevertheless, the tethered optical fiber system is still used as a universal method for its strong output power and long working time that cannot be replaced. But due to the variable implanted LED setups, optogenetics experiments are hard to be conducted, because the different implanted setups cost a lot of efforts and resources to adapt to the different interfaces. Here we developed a miniature, low-cost, high-efficiency, and modular LED probe to solve this problem, which is compatible with the optical fiber port, as a universal interface in optogenetics experiments.