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Washington: Gaining
access to the inner workings of a brain cell (neuron) in real time
offers a wealth of useful information. However, it is such a
painstaking and challenging task that only a small number of labs
in the world practise it - until now.
Researchers have developed a new automated process to find and
record information from neurons such as patterns of electrical
activity, its shape, even a profile of which genes are turned on
at a given moment, thus eliminating the need for months of
training and providing long-sought information about living cells'
activities, the journal Nature Methods reports.
The method could be particularly useful in studying brain
disorders such as schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, autism and
epilepsy.
Ed Boyden, associate professor of biological engineering and brain
and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), US, collaborated with Craig Forest, assistant
professor of mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, US, on the project.
"In all these cases, a molecular description of a cell that is
integrated with [its] electrical and circuit properties has
remained elusive. If we could really describe how diseases change
molecules in specific cells within the living brain, it might
enable better drug targets to be found," adds Boyden.
Boyden and Forest designed a robotic arm which, guided by a
cell-detecting computer algorithm, identifies and records from
neurons in the living mouse brain with better accuracy and speed
than a human experimenter, according to an MIT and Georgia
statement.
"Our team has been interdisciplinary from the beginning, and this
has enabled us to bring the principles of precision machine design
to bear upon the study of the living brain," Forest says.
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