Abstract
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is gaining increasing popularity worldwide for the function of health promotion and adjuvant therapy. However, the world's understanding of TCM is far from enough, which seriously limits the modernization and internationalization of TCM. Therefore, modern and efficient analytical methods are urgently needed to understand the mechanism of TCM. Optogenetics is one of the most prevalent technologies in the 21st century and has been used to explore life science, especially neuroscience. It already has had great influences in the study of neural circuits and animal models of mental diseases and was named “Method of the Year” by the Nature Methods journal in 2010. Increased interests occurred in the applications of optogenetics to explore a myriad of medical and mental health disorders. However, it has not so far been noticed by TCM researchers. We elaborated on an idea that introducing this technique into the field of TCM research to improve diagnosis, treatments, and evaluating the therapeutic effects. In this review, we made a systematic prospect in the theory, feasibility, and application of TCM optogenetics. We mainly focused on applying optogenetic methodologies to make a more comprehensive understanding of TCM.
Highlights
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), as the core component of international complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), has a history of more than 8000 years in China [1]
The TCM optogenetics will offer an evidence-based basis for understanding the foundation of Zheng, the relevance of TCM syndrome and effect, and the relationship between Chinese medical formulas and Zheng
TCM, as a holistic approach to health, attempts to bring the body, mind, and spirit into harmony. It is an essential part of the healthcare system in several Asian countries, but it is considered a complementary or alternative medical system in most Western countries [112]. e key issue is that the actual value of TCM has not been fully recognized worldwide due to a lack of scientific approaches to its study [113]
Summary
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), as the core component of international complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), has a history of more than 8000 years in China [1]. TCM-induced effects are related to multiple factors and responsible for treating complex diseases because of multicomponent, multitarget, and multipathway [7]; TCM has low toxicity and sideeffects; TCM-targeting preparation has unique advantages in the drug delivery system [8]. It has a huge gap between excellent clinical application and insufficient theory investigation. E Nature Methods and Science journal praised optogenetics as “Method of the Year” and “Breakthroughs of the Decade,” respectively [13, 14]. We proposed for the first time using optogenetics to uncover the mystery of TCM and its increased applications (Figure 1)
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