Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
While the brains of children are often shaped by new experiences, it is far more difficult for the connections in the adult mind to change – difficult, but not impossible, as the researchers behind a new study published in the latest edition of the journal Neuron have discovered.
In the study, University of California-Irvine neurobiologist Sunil Gandhi and his colleagues set out to determine if it is possible for an adult brain to regain some of the flexibility from its younger days. In experiments using adult mice, they were able to successfully reactivate brain plasticity, a term used to how neural pathways and synapses change in response to new experiences.
They accomplished this feat by transplanting embryonic inhibitory neurons from the medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) to ocular dominance plasticity in adults. Not only did this cause the reactivation of plasticity, but it made it possible for visually impaired mice to recover visual cortical function and restored normal perception in those rodents.
Possible way to treat brain disorders and injuries
The transplanted embryonic neurons expressed the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, which plays a key role in motor control, vision, and several other cortical functions, Dr. Gandhi and his co-authors explained. This allowed older adult brains to experience a period of increased flexibility, rewiring their brains and essentially making them young again.
Early on in life, normal visual experience is essential for the proper connections to be formed in the visual system, and impaired vision during this time can lead to a condition called amblyopia. In an attempt to restore normal sight to mice afflicted by this condition, the UC-Irvine team took GABA neurons and implanted them into the visual cortex of the adult creatures.
“Several weeks after transplantation, when the donor animal’s visual system would be going through its critical period, the amblyopic mice started to see with normal visual acuity,” lead author and postdoctoral fellow Melissa Davis explained in a statement.
The researchers are hopeful that this procedure could have future clinical applications, that GABA neuron transplantation may be able to provide new insight into basic brain mechanisms, and that the research could lead to new treatments for developmental brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.
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