Optical voltage imaging: ready to spark systems neuroscience

Many open questions about neural circuit and systems function could be answered if spikes and synaptic potentials could be accurately measured from many neurons simultaneously in a given network with cell-type specificity, cellular resolution, and at the millisecond time scale. Voltage imaging with genetically encoded voltage indicators (GEVIs) has advanced to the point that this is now possible for small networks or sparsely labeled neurons, and emerging optical methods promise to soon enable imaging from larger, dense cell populations. This review describes recent discoveries made using GEVIs to understand local and propagating cortical activity, network oscillations, and cortical and hippocampal microcircuit dynamics, and outlines several promising future applications in systems neuroscience.