Emerging from the bottleneck: benefits of the comparative approach to modern neuroscience
Neuroscience has historically exploited a wide diversity of animal taxa. Recently, however, research has focused increasingly on a few model species. This trend has accelerated with the genetic revolution, as genomic sequences and genetic tools became available for a few species, which formed a bott...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1045.507 http://web.as.uky.edu/Biology/faculty/cooper/Bio450-AS300/Comparative%20neuroscience.pdf |
| Summary: | Neuroscience has historically exploited a wide diversity of animal taxa. Recently, however, research has focused increasingly on a few model species. This trend has accelerated with the genetic revolution, as genomic sequences and genetic tools became available for a few species, which formed a bottleneck. This coalescence on a small set of model species comes with several costs that are often not considered, especially in the current drive to use mice explicitly as models for human diseases. Comparative studies of strategically chosen non-model species can complement model species research and yield more rigorous studies. As genetic sequences and tools become available for many more species, we are poised to emerge from the bottleneck and once again exploit the rich biological diversity offered by comparative studies. Biological diversity as a resource for neuroscience Model species such as the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), the nematode 'worm' (Caenorhabditis. elegans), zebrafish (Danio rerio), the rat (Rattus rattus), and, most predominantly, the mouse (Mus musculus) have played an important role in biology. A given species may offer particular advantages for the study of a biological process, such as rapid embryonic development, accessible nervous systems, or ease of maintenance in the laboratory. The advantages of model species have become more pronounced with the advent of the genomic revolution. Until recently, sequencing genomes was expensive and laborious, limiting the number of species for which genomic sequences were available. As the database of information for a given model species grows over time, there is an increasing incentive to use that species to investigate topics outside the narrow field of inquiry for which the species was initially chosen. 'Repurposing' of model species, however, can raise concerns -as seen in the ongoing debate about the value of inbred mouse (M. musculus) strains as models for understanding human mental disorders Potential limitations of the model species approach ... |
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