Create mice with mental illness to test drugs

Scientists have created schizophrenic mice to use for testing new drugs and therapies before testing them on humans. This new method will help improve the effectiveness of the trials to find new treatments for schizophrenia.

The team - including experts from Johns Hopkins University (USA) and Tokyo Agricultural University (Japan) - used gene technology to create a line of mice with the same brain structure and behavior as schizophrenia in humans.

Previously, scientists could only cause schizophrenia symptoms - like hallucinations, mood swings and paranoia - using drugs.

By creating mice with schizophrenia, scientists hope to improve the effectiveness of new drug trials to treat the disease.(Photo: cooltech.iafrica.com)

Now, with mice with schizophrenia newly created, experts will monitor the progress of this disease in mice to be able to more accurately assess the effectiveness of new drugs as well as methods New treatment.

The model tested on mice in this study was formed from the discovery of a gene called DICS1. This gene produces a protein that helps nerve cells to function stably in the brain.

By genetically modified technology, the team made mice produce a short and incomplete version of DISC1, and this version of the gene interfered with mouse brain activity.

These mice grew up with symptoms of schizophrenia. By magnetic resonance imaging, the team identified their brains with structures similar to those of schizophrenic brain mice.

According to the team, people or mice without DISC1 genes are at risk.

According to researcher Akira Sawa, of Johns Hopkins University, schizophrenia in mice will not be quite the same as in humans, because people with schizophrenia are affected by not only a genetic defect. .

However, he said: 'The model tested on mice will help us gain new insights into schizophrenia. We can use mice with schizophrenia to know how external factors, such as stress or viruses, play a role in making symptoms worse. '

'We can also show these mice to breed with other genetically altered mice, so that other genes related to schizophrenia can be detected'.

According to the research team, in the US there are about 2 million people suffering from this disease.

The brain of people with schizophrenia (left) and healthy brain.
(Photo: waysandmeans.house.gov)

Quang Thinh