4 ms·

> There was this mouse model they made which developed these plaques like in Alzheimers and they found they could clear them with brain stimulation pretty well

> There was this mouse model they made which developed these plaques like in Alzheimers and they found they could clear them with brain stimulation pretty well - but trying it in humans there was no effect. Rinse and repeat many times over, I think. This dynamic is what pushed me away from the field in general, the knowledge that I could spend my whole career working on a mouse model that there's reason for only tepid confidence in.

bumby 6y ago
There’s a Twitter feed dedicated to this caveat https://mobile.twitter.com/justsaysinmice?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/justsaysinmice?lang=en
- mjfl 6y ago
  For diseases where the causal mechanism is known very well, mouse models aren't that bad: Rett syndrome, hemophilia, spinal muscular atrophy. It gets to be a problem where the disease is poorly defined and the cause is unknown: Alzheimers, schizophrenia, ADHD, etc. It is very important that people have this discrimination power and not jump to "All of this is bad" or "All of this is good".
  - ghodith 6y ago
    Also in a lot of cases it’s the best we’ve got. You might be able to use monkeys but even that doesn’t change a lot of the problems. If you move from animal models you aren’t going to suddenly be able to start experimenting on humans.
  - bumby 6y ago
    Very good point. I always considered that Twitter profile as tongue-in-cheek, rather than being outright dismissive.
agumonkey 6y ago
Do you know if there are new ideas or techniques to go around that issue ? With printed tissue and new computational means .. I was hoping new roads would emerge.
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  Hopefully :) it's been 10 years and I haven't kept up on the topic.
benrapscallion 6y ago
Some of this has to do with the funding incentives in academic AD research. NIH continues to dump money into mouse and even more ridiculously Drosophila (fruit fly) models of Alzheimer’s. I am all for basic research but for this disease, if we have learnt one thing, it is that the success of a therapeutic in animal models is nearly 100% predictive of its failure in humans. The funding incentives need to change for meaningful change in the clinic.

bumby 6y ago

There’s a Twitter feed dedicated to this caveat https://mobile.twitter.com/justsaysinmice?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/justsaysinmice?lang=en

mjfl 6y ago
For diseases where the causal mechanism is known very well, mouse models aren't that bad: Rett syndrome, hemophilia, spinal muscular atrophy. It gets to be a problem where the disease is poorly defined and the cause is unknown: Alzheimers, schizophrenia, ADHD, etc. It is very important that people have this discrimination power and not jump to "All of this is bad" or "All of this is good".
- ghodith 6y ago
  Also in a lot of cases it’s the best we’ve got. You might be able to use monkeys but even that doesn’t change a lot of the problems. If you move from animal models you aren’t going to suddenly be able to start experimenting on humans.
- bumby 6y ago
  Very good point. I always considered that Twitter profile as tongue-in-cheek, rather than being outright dismissive.

agumonkey 6y ago

Do you know if there are new ideas or techniques to go around that issue ? With printed tissue and new computational means .. I was hoping new roads would emerge.

freewilly1040 6y ago
Hopefully :) it's been 10 years and I haven't kept up on the topic.

benrapscallion 6y ago

Some of this has to do with the funding incentives in academic AD research. NIH continues to dump money into mouse and even more ridiculously Drosophila (fruit fly) models of Alzheimer’s. I am all for basic research but for this disease, if we have learnt one thing, it is that the success of a therapeutic in animal models is nearly 100% predictive of its failure in humans. The funding incentives need to change for meaningful change in the clinic.