• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, September 22, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Roadmap for linking neurological and locomotor deficits

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
August 24, 2020
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Megan Carey

Locomotion deficits, such as lack of coordination, a shuffling gait, or loss of balance, can result from neurological conditions, specifically those that affect motor areas of the nervous system. To develop treatments, scientists often turn to animal models of disease. This strategy is crucial not only for designing potential therapies, but also for gaining insight into fundamental questions about the organisation and function of the nervous system.

Until recently, scientists did not have tools to systematically characterise specific walking deficits in different mouse models of neurological conditions. To solve this problem, Megan Carey’s lab, at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Portugal, developed LocoMouse: an automated movement-tracking system that captures the fine details of locomotion in mice.

“It’s like Tolstoy said”, remarks Carey, “all normal locomotion is alike, but every type of abnormal locomotion has its own neural basis.” In this free-style paraphrasing of Tolstoy’s opening sentence of the novel “Anna Karenina”, she captures the essence of her group’s most recent research project.

In a new study published in the scientific journal eLife, Carey’s team uses LocoMouse to identify highly-detailed “locomotor signatures” for two different mouse models. These signatures effectively capture the full pattern of walking deficits of each mouse. Analysing the relationship between the locomotor signatures and the patterns of affected neural circuitry then provides a roadmap for linking neurological and locomotor deficits.

Linking neurological and locomotor deficits

Two mice walk across a linear path. They walk slowly with heavy and uncertain steps. It’s clear that both mice suffer from motor deficits, but in a somewhat different way which is difficult to pinpoint by eye. What can their unique walking patterns say about the underlying cause?

“We published our initial results with LocoMouse a few years ago, focusing on one mouse model called pcd, which stands for Purkinje Cell Degeneration. These mice lack one of the main cell-types in the cerebellum (Purkinje cells). While the initial results of that study were interesting, we didn’t know how general, or how specific, the pattern of deficits would turn out to be,” Carey explains.

“Both pcd and reeler have inherited genetic mutations that affect a brain area called the cerebellum”, says Ana Machado, a lead author of the study. “The cerebellum is important for coordinated movement and for normal walking across species.”

Whereas the neural damage in pcd mice is restricted to the cerebellum, reeler mice have altered development and circuitry throughout the brain. “The locomotor behaviour of reeler and pcd mice is clearly different, reeler being more severely affected. Still, the locomotion deficits of both models appear broadly ‘cerebellar’ to a trained eye. We asked ourselves: ‘can we quantitatively capture shared and specific features of locomotion in these mice?’,” Machado recounts.

The answer was “yes.” The researchers found remarkably similar impairments in how movement was coordinated across the limbs and body. Their tail movements were also affected. Typically, mice control their tail to ensure overall stability, but both pcd and reeler are unable to do that. As a result, their tails passively oscillate as a consequence of their limb movement. “We think this shared pattern of deficits reflects core features of cerebellar damage,” says Carey.

In addition to the shared features, the team also identified specific walking deficits that were unique to reeler mice. “Movement variability was overall much higher in these mice. Also, they support their body weight with their front, rather than hind, limbs. As a consequence, they can’t use them for steering, which results in an unstable trajectory”, Machado explains. The researchers attribute these additional impairments to differences in brain circuitry both in the cerebellum and across the brain.

A roadmap for studying locomotor deficits

“When we began studying neural circuits for locomotion, there was always a tradeoff between specificity and interpretability of behavioral measurements,” Carey recalls. “With LocoMouse, we have tried to provide both a comprehensive, quantitative description of locomotor behaviour as well as a conceptual framework within which to interpret that high-dimensional data.”

“Now, we have a new roadmap that will allow us to move beyond these two mouse models and study many more,” says Carey. “We have a quantitative way to map huge high-dimensional sets of behavioural data onto the intricacies of the underlying neural circuits. This approach can be extended to many more mouse models, with different manipulations of various brain areas and cell types,” she concludes.

Video: https://youtu.be/jPy13PA8G-Q

###

Media Contact
Afonso Vaz Pinto
[email protected]

Original Source

http://magazine.ar.fchampalimaud.org/roadmap-for-linking-neurological-and-locomotor-deficits/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55356

Tags: BiologyMedicine/Healthneurobiology
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Dual-Camera System Enhances Lower-Limb Kinematics in Osteoarthritis

September 22, 2025

Experts warn: Prepare for a rising number of West Nile virus infections

September 22, 2025

Unraveling Copper’s Redox Role in Ullmann Reactions

September 22, 2025

Koala Stress Levels Connected to Increased Disease Risk

September 22, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    156 shares
    Share 62 Tweet 39
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    69 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 17
  • Tailored Gene-Editing Technology Emerges as a Promising Treatment for Fatal Pediatric Diseases

    50 shares
    Share 20 Tweet 13
  • Scientists Achieve Ambient-Temperature Light-Induced Heterolytic Hydrogen Dissociation

    49 shares
    Share 20 Tweet 12

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Dual-Camera System Enhances Lower-Limb Kinematics in Osteoarthritis

Severe Obesity Linked to Lower Rates of Recommended Cancer Screenings

SwRI Leads IMAP Payload Development for Upcoming Mission to Map Heliosphere Boundary

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.