PNAs: identification of unknown neurons in human brain by crabs

December 12, 2019 / Biovalley BIOON / -- the crab's nervous system can help scientists understand what causes a single neuron in the human brain to "lose control", thus promoting the development of nervous system diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease) If we can know exactly how a single neuron in the billions of neurons in the human brain works, we can help scientists design innovative ways to prevent and treat these diseases, such as targeted therapy Recently, a study by researchers at the University of Missouri, Brandeis University and the University of Texas at Austin was published in proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Researchers are trying to test a popular research method, called RNA sequencing, to identify unknown neurons in the brain and classify them into various subtypes "There are billions of neurons in the human brain, but we still don't know how many different types there are," said David Schulz, a professor of biological science at the school of Arts and science Schulz believes that the answer to this question will promote our understanding of brain diseases in the next 50 to 100 years But to answer this question, he said, we must first know the differences between neurons, as well as between healthy neurons and sick neurons Using the crab's nervous system as a model, the researchers compared and validated the results of previous human RNA sequencing methods Because crabs already have recognizable subtypes of neurons, researchers know what they are looking for, so they can reverse study published results and use RNA sequencing to verify these findings "If we don't know what to look for in a complex human brain, early work using RNA sequencing will require some improvement to answer this basic question," Schulz said This study is one of the improvements Until we understand each component, we can't expect to take the brain apart and reassemble it to understand how it works Therefore, choosing crabs as an alternative model solves this problem well "Information source: scientists use crabs to validate popular method to identify unknown human brain neurons original source: Adam J Northcutt, Daniel R kick, Adriane g ototalk, Benjamin M Goetz, Rayna M Harris, Joseph M Santin, Hans A Hofmann, Eve Marder, David J Schulz Molecular profiling of single neurons of known identity in two ganglia from the crab Cancer borealis Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019; 201911413 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1911413116