Systems and methods for optogenetic activation and monitoring

An optogenetic system for probing a specimen, comprising:

• an illumination unit configured to generate illumination light comprising a plurality of illumination protocols temporally sampled and interleaved with one another according to a time-division-multiplexed (TDM) scheme having a TDM sampling rate, each illumination protocol being for illuminating a respective region of interest (ROI) of a plurality of ROIs of the specimen;
• a spatial light modulator (SLM) unit configured to apply a spatio-temporal modulation to the illumination light to produce modulated illumination light and to direct the modulated illumination light onto the specimen, the spatio-temporal modulation comprising repeatedly imparting, at a pattern switching rate, a sequence of a plurality of spatial modulation patterns to the plurality of temporally sampled and interleaved illumination protocols, each spatial modulation pattern mapping to a respective one of the ROIs, the SLM unit being disposed in a path of specimen light emanating from the specimen, the SLM unit being further configured to repeatedly impart, at the pattern switching rate, the sequence of the plurality of spatial modulation patterns to the specimen light to produce modulated specimen light;
• a detection unit configured to detect the modulated specimen light and generate detection signal data conveying information about the specimen;
• and
• a control and processing unit operatively coupled to the illumination unit, the SLM unit, and the detection unit, the control and processing unit being configured to match and synchronize the TDM sampling rate of the TDM scheme applied by the illumination unit with the pattern switching rate of the spatio-temporal modulation applied by the SLM unit.