Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:20:44.335Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Optogenetics, Pluralism, and Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jacqueline Anne Sullivan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Optogenetic techniques are described as “revolutionary” for the unprecedented causal control they allow neuroscientists to exert over neural activity in awake-behaving animals. In this article, I demonstrate by means of a case study that optogenetic techniques will only illuminate causal links between the brain and behavior to the extent that their error characteristics are known and, further, that determining these error characteristics requires (1) comparison of optogenetic techniques with techniques having well-known error characteristics (methodological pluralism) and (2) consideration of the broader neural and behavioral context in which the targets of optogenetic interventions are situated (perspectival pluralism).

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , December 2018 , pp. 1090 - 1101
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

The author would like to thank Wendy Parker and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Thanks also to Marshall Abrams and members of the audience at the PSA 2016 symposium on Optogenetics and Control over Neural Systems for very helpful discussion.

References

Adamantidis, Antoine, et al. 2015. “Optogenetics: 10 Years after ChR2 in Neurons—Views from the Community.” Nature Neuroscience 18 (9): 1202–12..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechtel, William, and Stufflebeam, Robert. 2001. “Epistemic Issues in Procuring Evidence about the Brain: The Importance of Research Instruments and Techniques.” In Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader, ed. Bechtel, William, Mandik, Pete, Mundale, Jennifer, and Stufflebeam, Robert, 55–81. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bickle, John. 2006. “Reducing Mind to Molecular Pathways: Explicating the Reductionism Implicit in Current Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience.” Synthese 151:411–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bickle, John 2016. “Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development.” Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience 10 (24): 1–13..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyden, Edward, Zhang, Feng, Bamberg, Ernst, Nagel, Georg, and Deisseroth, Karl. 2005. “Millisecond-Timescale, Genetically Targeted Optical Control of Neural Activity.” Nature Neuroscience 8 (9): 1263–68..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chang, Hasok. 2012. Is Water H20? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Craver, Carl. 2007. Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giere, Ronald. 2006. “Perspectival Pluralism.” In Scientific Pluralism, ed. Kellert, Stephen, Longino, Helen, and Waters, C. Kenneth, 26–41. Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science 19. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald. 2010. Scientific Perspectivism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Häusser, Michael. 2014. “Optogenetics: The Age of Light.” Nature Methods 11:1012–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawai, Risa, Markman, Timothy, Poddar, Rajesh, Ko, Raymond, Fantana, Antoniu, Dhawale, Ashesh, Kampff, Adam, and Ölveczky, Bence. 2015. “Motor Cortex Is Required for Learning but Not for Executing a Motor Skill.” Neuron 86 (3): 800–812..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krakauer, John, Ghazanfar, Asif, Gomez-Marin, Alex, MacIver, Malcolm, and Poeppel, David. 2017. “Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias.” Neuron 93 (3): 480–90..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mayo, Deborah. 1991. “Novel Evidence and Severe Tests.” Philosophy of Science 58 (4): 523–52..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayo, Deborah 1996. Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nature Methods. 2011. “Method of the Year 2010.” Nature Methods 8 (1): 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otchy, Timothy, Wolff, Steffan, Rhee, Juliana, Pehlevan, Cengiz, Kawai, Risa, Kempf, Alexandre, Gobes, Sharon, and Ölveczky, Bemce. 2015. “Acute Off-Target Effects of Neural Circuit Manipulations.” Nature 528:358–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Popper, Karl. 1962. Conjectures and Refutations. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl 1979. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pratt, Kara, and Prather, Jonathan. 2016. “Systems Neuroscience: How the Cortex Contributes to Skilled Movements.” Current Biology 26:R60–R82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ramirez, Steve, Tonegawa, Susumu, and Liu, Xu. “Identification and Optogenetic Manipulation of Memory Engrams in the Hippocampus.” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 7 (226): 1–9..Google Scholar
Roberts, Todd, Gobes, Sharon, Muragan, Malavika, Ölveczky, Bence, and Mooney, Richard. 2012. “Motor Circuits Are Required to Encode a Sensory Model for Imitative Learning.” Nature Neuroscience 15 (10): 1454–59..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robins, Sarah. 2016. “Optogenetics and the Mechanism of False Memory.” Synthese 193:1561–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Südhof, Thomas. 2015. “Reproducibility: Experimental Mismatch in Neural Circuits.” Nature 528 (7582): 338–39..CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sullivan, Jacqueline. 2010. “Reconsidering Spatial Memory and the Morris Water Maze.” Synthese 177:261–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, Jacqueline 2014. “Is the Next Frontier in Neuroscience a Decade of the Mind?” In Brain Theory: Essays in Critical Neurophilosophy, ed. Wolfe, Charles, 45–67. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, Jacqueline 2016. “Construct Stabilization and the Unity of the Mind-Brain Sciences.” Philosophy of Science 83 (5): 662–73..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Melcher, Laurie, Pallas, Sarah, and Sur, Mriganka. 2000. “Visual Behavior Mediated by Retinal Projections Directed to Auditory Pathway.” Nature 404:871–76.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William. 2007. Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, James. 2003. Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar