Erin Norris/January 31, 2008/4:54/Technology
A prof. at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology named Jun Ohta planted a 3mm camera into the brain of a mouse. They hope that by studied the functions and cognitive processes of the mouse's brain that they can someday find a treatment for Parkinson's disease. They implanted it in the hippocampus of the mouse's brain and it is designed so that when the camera records the memory recording something there a screen that the researchers can see that lights up blue. This is because the mouse has been injected with a substance that whenever there is brain activity allows it to show up in the camera as a blue signal. They are planning to next try the device as the mouse is walking. Ohta hopes that in 10 years being the earliest that they can start to test this on patients that have Parkinson's disease hopefully as a way to detect when the brain causes tremors.
I think that this is a very valuable scientific project that could be very helpful in the advancement of treatments of Parkinson's disease. I also think however, that this is a very optimistic claim and that many tests and many trials of this will have to be made on larger animals before it can even be thought of to be tested on humans. I think that 10 years is very optimistic and I hope that they dont find too many complications that will prevent them with being able to continue their research and hopefully find some treatments of this disease because it is something that would be very valuable to an entire community of families and people who actually deal with the disease every day.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=4223558
3 comments:
This post is certainly interesting. I agree with you that 10 years may be a little optimistic, but then again with the advances that medical technology is making now, and at the rate of which they are happening - it may not be so outlandish.
I find this so interesting. Technology is doing great things for the medical field, and trying to find a cure for one of the hardest diseases to live with is a great way to use it. The fact that anyone can implant a camera into a brain as small as a mouses is fascinating to me!
This is very interesting to read. I think that you are right it will take many years to see if this treatment is suitable to test on humans, but it certainly does show how far technology has brought us. I think that it is excellent that they are so hopeful for this.
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