For the last decade, optogenetics has revolutionised the neurosciences by enabling an unprecedented characterisation of the circuits involved in brain diseases, in particular addiction, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD) and other anxiety disorders. Recently, the technique has also been used to propose blueprints for novel treatments of these diseases. For many reasons, optogenetics cannot be applied to humans applications anytime soon; we therefore argue that an intermediate step would be novel deep brain stimulation (DBS) protocols that emulate successful optogenetic "treatments" in animal models. Here we provide a roadmap of a translational path to rational, optogenetically inspired DBS protocols to refine existing approaches and expand it to novel indications.