Methods to control neural activity by light have been introduced to the field of neuroscience. During the last decade, several techniques have been established, including optogenetics, thermogenetics, and infrared neural stimulation. The techniques allow investigators to turn-on or turn-off neural activity. This review is an attempt to show the importance of the techniques for the auditory field and provide insight in the similarities, overlap, and differences of the techniques. Discussing the mechanism of each of the techniques will shed light on the abilities and challenges for each of the techniques. The field has been grown tremendously and a review cannot be complete. However, efforts are made to summarize the important points and to refer the reader to excellent papers and reviews to specific topics. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled <Annual Reviews 2014>.
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