So I’m currently working in Dr. Christina Williams’ lab, and guess what I’m doing – making mice exercise on wheels!
The Williams lab previously found that voluntary running partially restores hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive function in wildtype mice after whole-brain irradiation (WBI), which is a cancer therapy that is used in patients with brain tumors (Wong-Goodrich et al. 2010). WBI does good for the patients in that it stops cell division; yet in compensation, it progressively debilitates memory since neurogenesis (birth of new neurons) in the hippocampus (involved with memory and spatial navigation) is hindered by the WBI.
In 2006, Ziv et al.’s study provided evidence that immune system plays an important role in neurogenesis, highlighting the fact that T cells are essential to adult neurogenesis and spatial learning and memory. In our project, we are investigating the effect of voluntary wheel running on immunodeficient mice that lack T cells.
In order to investigate this question, right now I am handling 2 sets of immunodeficient mice (getting them familiar with my touch and scent) and we just started making one set run in the wheels for about 8 hours a day; the other set of mice will get the same treatment (handling) except the running; hopefully after daily voluntary running for about a month and a half, we would see hippocampal neurogenesis in the immunodeficient mice that ran, as hypothesized!
