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“A battery of standard tests for mouse memory and cognition showed that the mice with human astrocytes are much smarter than their mousy peers.
In one test that measures ability to remember a sound associated with a mild electric shock, for example, the humanised mice froze for four times as long as other mice when they heard the sound, suggesting their memory was about four times better. “These were whopping effects,” says Goldman. “We can say they were statistically and significantly smarter than control mice.”
Goldman first reported last year that mice with human glial cells are smarter. But the human cells his team injected then were mature so they simply integrated into the mouse brain tissue and stayed put.
This time, he injected the precursors of these cells, glial progenitor cells, which were able to divide and multiply. That, he says, explains how they were able to take over the mouse brains so completely, stopping only when they reached the physical limits of the space.”
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