Human cells are used to create smarter mice

It sounds like science fiction, but it's not. mice bred with human cells No. brain already result in animals smarter than your ancestors. The experiment does not try to imitate fiction, but rather to understand the evolution of diseases in the human brain.

The modified mice still have mouse neurons. These cells make up almost half of the volume contained in the brain. However, glial cells, those that support neurons, are all human. "It's still a mouse brain," says Steve Goldman, medical research university of new york, “but all non-neuronal cells are human”.

For the experiment, immature cells taken from human fetuses were injected into baby rodents, where they grew and turned. astrocytes, a type of glial cell in the form of a star. Human cells take their place in the mouse brain, multiplying by occupying half the brain space. "It seems that the mouse cells run away, while the human ones take over the place.“, says the scientist.

A series of memory and cognition tests were done to examine the mice and it was concluded that the new mice are much smarter than ordinary mice without human cells. In general, your intellectual capacity increased by up to 4 times that of a normal mouse.

The procedure could be repeated in other animals, it remains to be concluded what would be ethical or not. But imagine your cat or dog 4 times smarter? Would you agree or not?

Source: news scientist.