Rebuilding the Brain’s Circuitry

[TECH NEWS]

Neuron transplants have repaired brain circuitry and substantially normalized function in mice with a brain disorder, an advance indicating that key areas of the mammalian brain are more reparable than was widely believed. Collaborators from Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) transplanted normally functioning embryonic neurons at a carefully selected stage of their development into the hypothalamus of mice unable to respond to leptin, a hormone that regulates metabolism and controls body weight. These mutant mice usually become morbidly obese, but the neuron transplants repaired defective brain circuits, enabling them to respond to leptin and thus experience substantially less weight gain. “The next step for us is to ask parallel questions of other parts of the brain and spinal cord, those involved in ALS and with spinal cord injuries. In these cases, can we rebuild circuitry in the mammalian brain? I suspect that we can” said Jeffrey Macklis, one of three corresponding authors of the paper on the study, to be published in Science. The two other senior authors are Jeffrey Flier and Matthew Anderson.

Nov 28, 2011, Harvard Gazette