Insane in the Membrane!

Hi all!

     So I know I have not written very much lately or at all it seems but I am going to post a couple posts here today so I can explain why! This post though is about something that I learned from my Intro to Anatomy and Physiology class. My teacher, Matt, one of the best teachers I have ever had, gave us this extra credit assignment, an article (which I will link at the end) about human progenitor glial cells in murine brains. You are looking at me like WHAT? That's right I am going to break it down for you.
       The article which took me forever to interpret and when I finally did made me excited! Basically the article is talking about an experiment a group of scientists did on mice. They injected human brain cells into mice brains. First of all I am sorry if you are against researching on animals but when you see the results of what happened I hope you will forgive me for posting this. Secondly this is insane right, I mean why would you even think to do that? Anyways, the scientists discovered that the human astrocytes (brain cells) took over the mice brains. Instead of a splitting of the brain between mice and human astrocytes the human cells made up the majority of the astrocytes inside the mouse brain. Interesting huh? That is not all! The chimeran mice (mice with human brain cells) turned out to be more intelligent and to learn at a faster rate than regular mice. They did multiple tests with mazes, fear, and bait to discover that these chimeran mice were highly intelligent.
       You are like ok, Claire, that is great but what is so cool about this? The chimeran mice were more intelligent without any nasty side effects that sometimes humans develop. These nasty effects could include ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, brain lesions, strokes, tumors etc. This is truly amazing! The chemical linked to these diseases was within reasonable levels in the mice and was not produced in excess ever. The chemical which is usually linked to these diseases did not increase or compensate after being engrafted into the mouse brain. That means that these mice will never have to deal with those diseases and actually the grey matter inside the brain was increased. Grey matter refers to the part of the brain where we make memories and learn or so scientists think.
        So I can see you coming up to your own conclusions and yes you are correct! This means that a cure or prevention for this diseases are not just a possibility but will one day (with enough funding) be a reality. Learning disabilities such as ADD, ADHD, dyslexia and others would also benefit from this research. It is astounding to think that we are not decades (hopefully) away from a cure but years away from a cure. This to me is amazing and simply wonderful.
Here is the link http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/abstract/S1934-5909(13)00007-6. Also good luck trying to understand it if you are not into neuroscience but Google is your friend.
Claire