'Mouse mindreading' could help in Alzheimer's research

It is claimed the work could provide a useful tool for studying new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers first used a gene therapy approach to cause the mouse’s neurons to express a green fluorescent protein that was engineered to be sensitive to the presence of calcium ions. When a neuron fires, the cell naturally floods with calcium ions. Calcium stimulates the protein, causing the entire cell to fluoresce bright green.

A microscope implanted just above the mouse’s hippocampus – a part of the brain that is critical for spatial and episodic memory – captures the light of roughly 700 neurons. The microscope is connected to a camera chip, which sends a digital version of the image to a computer screen.

The computer then displays near real-time video of the mouse’s brain activity as a mouse moves around a small enclosure, dubbed an arena by the researchers.

‘We can literally figure out where the mouse is in the arena by looking at these lights,’ said Mark Schnitzer, an associate professor of biology and of applied physics and senior author of a paper describing the research in Nature Neuroscience.