14 DAY TRIAL // Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists announce the development of a new scientific method for strengthening synapses between neurons grown in the lab. This represents the first time such an achievement is reached.
A number of neurological conditions, including neurodegenerative dementia and autism, have been linked to damages or breakdowns between synapses. These are the links that connect nerve cells called neurons together, allowing them to communicate via electric signals.
MIT investigators have proposed some time ago that strengthening synapses could make the fight against such conditions easier for researchers. At the same time, the approach could help prevent normal memory decline associated with old age.
The issue with doing so is that the human brain contains an average of 100 billion neurons, each of which connects to as many as 10,000 other nerve cells. This means that the average brain features trillions of such connections.
While the new investigation does not provide a direct answer to how synapses can be made stronger in vivo, it does provide a way to create test materials on which scientists can test new drugs. The synapses can only be strengthened under very precise conditions.
However, when all these demands are met, the team is able to test large numbers of drugs very rapidly. This can help cut down the vast amount of time usually associated with such screening processes.
The research team was led by expert Mehmet Fatih Yanik, who is the Robert J. Shillman Career Development associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT. Postdoctoral researcher Peng Shi and graduate students Mark Scott and Zachary Wissner-Gross were also a part of the study.
The group also included Harvard University experts Stephen Haggarty, Balaram Ghosh and Dongpeng Wan, as well as Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigator Ralph Mazitschek. Their study appears in the October 25 online issue of the top scientific journal Nature Communications.
Thomas Jefferson University associate professor of neuroscience Matthew Dalva – who was not a part of the new study – comments that this study provides a new way of approaching neural and synaptic investigations.
“Right now we know so little about synapse formation, so this could open new doors,” Dalva concludes.