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Smart Rats May Lead to Dementia Treatment
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by Barbara McPherson | November 13, 2009 at 10:56 am
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Recent research led by Joe Z. Tsien of the Medical College of Georgia has produced a super smart rat. While the last thing the world needs is a smarter rat, the research may pave the way for treatments in dealing with brain degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
When Hobbie-J was still an embryo, a team led by Joe Z. Tsien at the Medical College of Georgia injected her with genetic material that caused the overexpression of the gene NR2B, which helps control the rate at which brain cells communicate.
Hobbie-J is a whiz at solving rat mazes, a measure of rat smarts.
Researcher Jos Z. Tsien has been working on boosting intelligence for some time, previously producing a highly intelligent mouse named Doogie.
The application of this research to humans is still many years in the future. Once the mechanism of boosting intelligence is fully understood, then a drug application would have to be developed that would mimic the genetic modification of the rat embryos.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 11:29 on November 13th, 2009
He's like a cartoon rat - those are always smarter. But this could be good news for advances in dementia for sure.