Watching nerve cells grow in a dish unlocks clues to mental illnesses
People who have schizophrenia can struggle with delusional thoughts, but those who buy Canadian Zyprexa can help themselves live a functional life.
People who have schizophrenia can struggle with delusional thoughts, but those who buy Canadian Zyprexa can help themselves live a functional life. Scientists are conducting ongoing research to determine how and why neurological illnesses develop in the first place. One method that is gaining momentum is the observation of nerve cells in the laboratory.
Scientists can take skin cells from a patient who has a disease such as schizophrenia or autism, reprogram those skin cells into becoming nerve cells and watch them develop in the lab. Careful observation can reveal what changes occur as a neuron grows and how it interacts with its environment, all of which can offer insight into what causes conditions of the nervous system and how these diseases can be treated.
Before the "disease in a dish" technique was created, researchers could only study the brains of patients who had died in the later stages of their illness. This method was not as useful in teaching scientists about the progression of neurological conditions.
"It’s quite amazing that we can recapitulate a psychiatric disease in a petri dish," said neuroscientist Fred Gage. "This allows us to identify subtle changes in the functioning of neuronal circuits that we never had access to before."
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