Genes to Cognition Continuum

Professor Seth Grant outlines one way in which the Genes to Cognition Research Programme uses model organisms to study learning and memory in humans.

The way we bridge genes to cognition is to use gene mutations in mice and in humans and then study the behavior in mice and in humans. And a very simple example comes from recent work where there were families of boys who have mental retardation and particular learning deficits, and the gene that was defective in those boys was sequenced and discovered, and we engineered mice that contained the same mutation as in the humans, and these mice also have specific learning deficits. And this is simply the strategy of using mouse and human genetics and studying the psychology in the mice and in the humans. In addition, we also had to study the gap between behavior and genes which is to look at the electrophysiological properties of nerve cells, the biochemical properties of nerve cells and the proteomic characteristics of nerve cells.