Researchers repair brain circuitry in miceRSS Feed

Researchers have repaired brain circuitry and significantly normalised function in mice with brain injury.

Normally functioning embryonic neurons at a carefully chosen stage of development were transplanted into the hypothalamus of mice unable to respond to leptin - a hormone which regulates metabolism and controls body weight.

An inability to respond to leptin would usually cause the mice to become morbidly obese, according to the research, which was published in journal Science.

However, the neuron transplants repaired the defective brain circuits, meaning they responded to the leptin and experienced substantially less weight gain.

Jeffrey Macklis, a Harvard University professor, said that the findings could have implications for spinal injury as well as other conditions.

"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," he said.

"In these cases, can we rebuild circuitry in the mammalian brain? I suspect that we can."

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