Source: University of California - San Francisco
Date: March 25, 2010
Summary:
Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco report that they were able to prompt a new period of “plasticity,” or capacity for change, in the neural circuitry of the visual cortex of juvenile mice. The approach, they say, might some day be used to create new periods of plasticity in the human brain that would allow for the repair of neural circuits following injury or disease. The strategy – which involved transplanting a specific type of immature neuron from embryonic mice into the visual cortex of young mice – could be used to treat neural circuits disrupted in abnormal fetal or postnatal development, stroke, traumatic brain injury, psychiatric illness and aging.
In their study, published in the journal Science, (Vol. 327. no. 5969, 2010), the scientists wanted to see if the embryonic neurons, once they had matured into GABA-producing inhibitory neurons, could induce plasticity in mice after the normal critical period had closed.
