Patterned light stimulation, does it affect neuronal activity?

Neuronal sensitivity to light stimulation can be a significant confounding factor for assays that use light to study neuronal processes, such as optogenetics and fluorescent imaging. While continuous light stimulation has been shown to be responsible for a decrease in firing activity in several neuronal subtypes, discontinuous light stimulation commonly used in optogenetic experiments is supposed to have a negligible action. In the present report, we experimentally test this theoretical prediction by evaluating the effect produced by ten of the most commonly used patterns of discontinuous light stimulation under several electrophysiological parameters.