![]() And epilepsy involves special cells that tamp down brain activity. ![]() "A lot of neurological diseases, a lot of psychiatric diseases that we're suffering from are due to specific defects in particular types of cells," Koch says.įor example, Parkinson's disease affects brain cells that make a substance called dopamine. The list of cell types also should help researchers see what goes wrong in human brain disorders, Koch says. "We now have access to this fine level of resolution in the human brain and the ability to compare across and see how good a model a mouse or a monkey actually is," Lein says. This also makes it much easier to compare brain tissue from different species, he says. "In one fell swoop you can get a more or less comprehensive understanding of all of the different types of cells that make up a brain region," Lein says. That reveals a genetic signature indicating the type of cell. The technology does this by detecting which genes are switched on in each cell. The comparison was possible because of new technology that allows scientists to quickly identify which of the hundreds of types of brain cells are present in a particular bit of brain tissue. So testing these drugs on mice could be misleading, Lein says. That's potentially a big deal because antidepressants like Prozac act on the brain's serotonin system. As a result, "serotonin would have a very different function when released into the cortex of the two species." "They're expressed in both mouse and human, but they're not in the same types of cells," Lein says. One key difference involved genes that cause a cell to respond to the chemical messenger serotonin, says Ed Lein, a study author and investigator at the institute. "If you want to develop a drug that targets a specific receptor in a specific disease, then these differences really matter," says Christof Koch, an author of the study and chief scientist and president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. But in people, these same treatments usually fail.Īnd now researchers are beginning to understand why.Ī detailed comparison of the cell types in mouse and human brain tissue found subtle but important differences that could affect the response to many drugs, a team reports Wednesday in the journal Nature. In mice, scientists have used a variety of drugs to treat brain disorders including murine versions of Alzheimer's disease, depression and schizophrenia.
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