Researchers using the DNA editing tool CRISPR have created genetically altered squid. These cephalopods large brains will be used to study Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Here’s more from SlashGear:
In the paper Cephalopod Brains: An Overview of Current Knowledge to Facilitate Comparison With Vertebrates, the similarities between cephalopod and vertebrate brains are shown. In the paper Toward an MRI-Based Mesoscale Connectome of the Squid Brain, researchers performed high-resolution dMRI scans to explore the “hitherto unsuspected pathways” in the brain of the squid, suggesting these squid are far more intelligent than previously proven (or suspected).
“I think you’re going to see a huge jump in the use of these [gene-edited] organisms by neurobiologists,” said Joshua Rosenthal, PhD, speaking with OneZero this week. Dr. Rosenthal was a key architect of the first successfully genetially engineered squid and a senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
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