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Just as teams of elite athletes train alongside staffs of coaches, ensembles of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex depend on nearby astrocytes to help them learn to encode when and how to move, and the optimal timing and trajectory of a motion, a new MIT study shows.
Get latest articles and stories on Health at LatestLY. Throughout our lifetimes, we have acquired the ability to do a variety of skilled movements, from driving a car to swinging a tennis racket. You might believe that only neurons carry out this learning, but a recent study by scientists at The Picower Center for Learning and Memory at MIT demonstrates the crucial function of another type of brain cell: astrocytes. Health News | Astrocyte Cells Critical for Learning Skilled Movements: Research.
Using organoids to model early development, researchers used an emerging microscopy technology to see that new neurons struggled to reach their developmental destination in Rett syndrome lab models.
With organoids to model initial development, scientists employed a developing microscopy technology to observe that new neurons struggled to attain their developmental goal.
Using an innovative microscopy method, scientists at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT observed how newborn neurons struggle to reach their proper places in advanced human brain tissue models of Rett syndrome, producing new insight into how developmental deficits observed in the brains of patients with the devastating disorder may emerge.