Genetically-modified mouse helps scientists with dementia breakthrough

The University of Bradford was involved in a study which has shown for the first time how a single protein molecule in the brain affects how people learn tasks and form memories.

The findings could be used to develop better treatments for people who experience memory loss through degenerative brain conditions.

Researchers created a specially-bred mouse which had a mutated form of the Arc brain protein and compared its ability to escape from a maze with a normal mouse.

They found that the mouse without the mutated protein could use spatial cues to escape from different places around the maze but the modified mouse had to work its way around the maze to find the way out.

The researchers said the experience of the genetically-modified mouse was similar to changes in behaviour known as “cognitive inflexibility”, seen in people as they get older or develop neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

They said study found that the protein had an “on and off switch” which controlled people’s ability for flexible thinking, problem solving and “reversal learning”. The breakthrough is expected to lead to further research.

The research was led by Dr Sonia. Correa from the University of Bradford and Dr Angela Mabb from Georgia State University in the US, with help from Dr Mark Wall from the University of Warwick

Dr Correa said: “These findings show that activity of a single molecule controls a critical aspect of learning and memory process, which is the ability to reverse a learning task.

“Remarkably, this molecule is not implicated on the learning process itself, but rather on the reversal learning. As such these findings give us hope to develop specific therapeutic drugs aimed to delay deficits in reversal learning that is believed to cause the early loss of memory that occurs in ageing and neuro-degenerative diseases.”

The research team said their findings could be used to start clinical trials on how to control the malfunctioning of the Arc protein.

Dr Mabb said: “It’s scary to think that the abnormal removal of one single protein in the brain can cause this type of altered behaviour. We are currently conducting new experiments in the lab to look at this more closely with the goal of identifying novel drug targets for neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, which are known to have cognitive inflexibility.”