I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Organs Zone. It has scientists studying health and disease in various parts of our bodies. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
Not the exactly the same, but we can model mental disabilities in mice, Bhanes and Wodddupp.
Mice are not humans but they do have a lot of the same genes as us and they also can do a lot of the same things too. I study mice to learn about memory. Mice are very smart and can find there way around a maze for a reward. They can even play video games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGtxFpicXV0
We can test people and mice on the same memory tasks using touch sensitive computer screens. The mice and humans need to remember the correct symbol and then touch it to get a reward.
Some mental disabilities in humans are caused by a mutation (change in DNA) in one gene. This gene is the instructions for a protein in the cell, and the mutation ruins these instructions. Without this protein the person then develops a mental disability and problems with their memory ability.
We can introduce these mutations into mice an then test the mice in the same computer touch screen task as the people with the mental disability. We can look at what the protein does to cause problems in the mouse’s brain and then develop new drugs that might help people too.
1