Using viruses to study the brain.

What is it about?

Parts of the brain called synapses help brain cells communicate with each other. Synapses are important for the brain to develop and function properly. When the proteins in synapses change, it can cause problems like neurological and mental disorders. To understand these problems better and find new treatments, scientists need to change the proteins in synapses and study them inside living animals. Methods used in the past such as creating animals in which certain genes are turned off have been helpful, but come with certain limitations such as unintentional compensation by other genes. Here, we describe a different approach to changing genes in mice's brains at different times in their development using viruses. We used this virus to change genes in newborn as well as adult mice and used this method, to turn off a gene called Rac1 in specific brain cells and see how it affected neuronal communication. We also used this virus to make neurons produce more of another protein called CaV2 and study how it affects the development of nerve cells.

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This method is reliable, cheap, and avoids unintentional side effects of commonly used methods to study proteins in the brain. Using this method, scientists can control genes in specific parts of a mouse's brain at distinct developmental time points. This will be a useful tool for studying how the brain works and how proteins are dysfunctional in brain diseases.

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