LOS ANGELES: A group of Korean scientists has successfully produced a research pig with symptoms related to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Research into dementia and Alzheimer’s is still in its early stages, and this new development could be instrumental for future progress.
The team from Seoul National University, led by professors Seon-ha Baek (neurosurgery), and Byeong-chun Lee (veterinary medicine), revealed that they had successfully produced an ‘Alzheimer’s Dementia Transformed Pig’.
This means that the team succeeded in altering the pig’s genetic traits through somatic cell cloning so that its brain produces more amyloids, which are aggregates of proteins believed to cause Alzheimer’s when they accumulate in the brain.
The images from the pig’s brain showed less glucose than normal pigs with their cortex contracted, which is typical of patients with dementia.
Dementia research is often conducted with lab mice. However, symptoms in mice differ too significantly from those in humans, which makes it difficult to use them for clinical testing…