Have you heard of Opsins? Think of "Optimal Signs"..

Opsins are a new development in physiology found and developed over 30 years, opsins are cellular pumps that are activated by light. They have been first found in bacilli that live in places like lakes or salt lakes where no other life can thrive. The trick is to first extract them from the bacilli and inject them into the brains of lab mice with a special virus that finds only the cells to reach. Once in place the three important known types of opsins are an ion pump that can be powered by light, the three kinds of opsins can each be powered by red yellow or blue light. The remarkable thing about opsins is they act as a small electrode in the brain. In the lab, behavior of mice with opsins can be changed at will just by changing the light as the mouse moves around, and the behavior started or stopped by turning off the light.

For now opsins are thought of mostly as a diagnostic tool. By changing just the neurons or one neuron at a time, much more exact brain research can be achieved, unlike probes which can’t be made small enough to change individual neurons with reliable power. Evidence that MRI works reliably to tell us about brain chemistry by correlation has been proven with the opsins already, which was believed though not proven, and with other important findings about illnesses such as Parkinson's’s and schizophrenia, where there are more gamma brain waves now proven to be caused by parvalbumin neurons as had been believed. In other research, Anatol Kreitzer and colleagues at U.C.S.F have found that Parkinson’s can be turned on or off by using a red light opsin to change the frequency of neurons, one slows movements, and one speeds them up and can counteract Parkinson’s by changing the firing rate.

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The method of using opsins is generally to stimulate just one neuron at time and turn it on and off at will in order to prove the worth and action of drugs for research at a higher rate of reliability, this would be the first phase. I believe however opsin like pumps might be engineered that would not just be activated by light, rather they could use some all present chemical in all the cells of the body, e.g Hydrogen peroxide, melatonin, or oxygen to power the pump permanently increasing or decreasing the presence of some chemicals in the body. While opsins are now thought to be mostly of worth to make better drugs, and for improving brain drugs more reliably and faster, by permanently rewiring the brain, opsins may eventually be a cure for mental illness and other illnesses like Parkinson’s, and a cure for illnesses like diabetes by using the pumps in the pancreas or elsewhere to produce more insulin. Like the ancient belief that illness or health is caused by the fluids or humors, many illness have too much of a some compound or too little in circulation. Thus the pumps that would take up compounds would also make many illnesses as if cured. In schizophrenia for example the presence of endorphins is 10 to 100 times that of others without the illness (Removing the endorphins by dialysis for those with the illness has been shown to stop the symptoms they have for days.) Thus a pump that would take up the endorphins and perhaps combine them with some other compound to make them then digestible and removed from the circulation by way of the kidneys would be like a cure without having to change the neurons which would seem to have ethical considerations. Ethical objections to changing behavior could also be solved by making the changes optional and removable if they turned out to be without as much value, especially till the value of opsins is better known. For now we would always use opsins powered by light that can be turned off, if they are well proven then we might consider more permanent pumps, even so the best option would be to make these also changeable, perhaps even making them changeable by genetic engineering so only the right kind of computer coded light would turn them on and off, and by making sure the chance of this in usual life of accidental change in the pumps would be uncommon.

The mapping of the human genome has seemed to fail to find any convenient genes for illness or health, so far the DNA has been found to be so polygenic there have been few definite genes found for illnesses, this would seem to be because the body is like a complex ecosystem with each part precisely reflecting the image like the inner or of the inner world, like a crystal with each facet reflecting just so and if any of it is changed all of it will be changed in complex ways each dependant on the other. Thus there may be few simple genes found to cure illness. Actually I believe this would not be like the brains neurons where they have found a few "boss" neurons that control the rest. In evolution this would be because like a bird not having two sets of wings, one simple central controlling force would be more conducive to survival in danger, so the brain may have these controlling neurons. For genes however since they are slower to change than behavior, less centralized, and not in competition so much more complex control may be the way of evolution. This may be why in recent research they've found that in the time of our civilization our evolution has actually been much slower than expected, genes wouldn't be mostly polygenic because if they are mostly for the life of the organism, as in this recent article by Jonathan P. because they don't need to be so complex. There are methods of changing genes fast e.g. some vitamins, even so the general framework of is mostly constant. If so opsins may be especially of worth because changing the genes may be especially unwise if they’re all needed and of worth to the rest due to the complexity. If we change on gene, all the other may be irreparably harmed, at least long term. By mostly bypassing the genes with the small pumps, this risk may be reduced.

The pumps be used to cure many illnesses, being a neurostimulant, and it may be a genius pill, a memory pill, an energy pill, a pill to love chocolate, even more, I've loved chocolate 1000 years! It’s been said if any of the new brain boosting pills being developed works, it will be the most popular of all time. They may cure mental illness and addictions, debt behaviour, retardation, perhaps most or all behavioural woes.
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The opsins were found in unharmed ecosystems like the salt marshes, people would perhaps never have guessed how to engineer them on their own, it seems of worth that we save the ecology to save the world.

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