Do you know more than 100 genes in a marine snail — Aplysia - are similar to those associated with all major human neurological diseases? Not just that! Even more than 600 genes controlling human brain development are similar to those of the sea slug!
Compared with about 100 billion neurons in humans, the marine slug has a relatively simple nervous system, whose about 10,000 large neurons can easily be identified.
Researchers have discovered this by probing into the brain of Aplysia. This finding reveals the fact that learning or the progression of brain disorders does not take place in isolation!
Rather, these stem from interactions between large gene-clusters existing within many cells. This finding is a major breakthrough as, till date, scientists have been pondering on the question -
How do genes shape circuits in the brain for enhancing learning and memory?
Study team member Eric Kandel of Columbia University in New York said,
This improves the genetic data that is available on Aplysia by several orders of magnitude.
