• Question: Where do you get your brain samples from ?

    Asked by beefer to Michelle, Fiona on 20 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by stephmcilroy.
    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hey beefer and stephmcilroy,
      I think we had this discussion in the live chat earlier but it is a really good question. I get my brain samples from hamsters (Siberian hamsters). These animals have been bred for research and looked after very well. I study hamsters because they have the same hormones and cell types as humans. Hamsters can naturally lose 40% of their body weight in winter and gain it all again in summer. Studying this will hopefully give us an understanding of weight loss and ideas for new treatments for obesity. This is important as more than 30,000 people die each year from obesity and its related diseases so we one day we will hopefully be saving lives. I don’t like using animals and if there was an alternative I would choose to use it as well as having to by law, as it is illegal to use animals if there is an alternative.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 20 Jun 2010:

      Hi Beefer, for my job I use brain cells taken from mouse. They are frozen when we get them in Japan and we can bring them back to life and grow them in a culture dish.

Comments

  • Photo: William

    William commented on :

    I get my brain samples from mice and rats that have been bred for research, and like michelle’s hamsters, that have been looked after well. I have also used human brain samples which have been obtained from people who have agreed to donate their organs to research after they have died. Getting hold of human brain tissue is pretty tricky, and there is a big effort on at the moment to get people to sign up to donate their organs after they’ve died – research on these is likely to have lots of benefits for understanding and treating terrible diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease.