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Rabbits may further Alzheimer’s research

Miami scientists are using the animals to study the brain’s hemispheres.

Miami University Professor Dr. Stephen Berry and grad student Loren Hoffmann have developed a "cognition enhancing" brain-computer interface in animals that can greatly accelerate the formation of a new associative memory. The interface was also useful in reversing age-related memory impairment in animals. Staff photo by Greg Lynch

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By Ariana Williams, Contributing Writer 12:39 PM Friday, February 5, 2010

OXFORD — Two Miami scientists spend a lot of time in the basement of the psychology building with rabbits.

For about two years, Stephen Berry, psychology professor at Miami, and Loren Hoffmann, a graduate student, have been researching how different parts of the brain learn with the use of a brain-computer interface.

“The brain is a learning machine. If we don’t pin down how learning is and where learning is, then we’ll never completely understand the brain,” said Berry, who has worked at Miami University for 30 years and with rabbits since the mid-1970s.

With a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Hoffmann and Berry have been researching by putting electrodes into the brains of rabbits — one in each hemisphere of the hippocampus, which is the center for learning and memory, and two in the cerebellum — and then studying brain activity.

After the rabbit is hooked up to electrodes, they put it in a special room that keeps out all types of signals and Internet connections. They run the electrodes through a series of filters and amplifiers and then to a computer. This computer is what holds all of their research and allows them to access it and analyze it.

Then they perform experiments on the rabbit, by playing a tone for the rabbit and then shooting a puff of air into the rabbit’s eye. Hoffmann said this was humane and that the puff was only large enough to get a reaction out of the rabbit and not hurt it.

For every experiment they use the same amount of time between the tone and the air puff, and then record when the rabbit blinks, in response to the air puff.

The electrodes in the rabbit’s brain record a frequency called theta, and use this to analyze the data.

Hoffmann and Berry compared the brain activity of the rabbit when there was a lot of theta present and when there was no theta present. In their study, there was a definite connection between the hippocampus and the cerebellum showing the rabbit can learn when the air puff is coming.

“The two parts of the brain are very well coordinated with the help of theta,” Hoffmann said.

What makes their study ground breaking is the fact that the rabbit only learned to blink before the air puff when theta was present in the brain.

Berry and Hoffmann see a lot of potential in their study, and they want the public to understand it too. Although not everyone can visit their lab and see their work first hand, everyone can see the potential of their work.

By publishing their study, and being the first to do so, Hoffmann and Berry hope that others follow in their footsteps and make more breakthroughs in the field.

“The connection between these two areas is unexplored,” said Berry, referring to the hippocampus and cerebellum.

Berry said the areas of the brain he is studying are the areas that deteriorate with afflictions like Alzheimer’s disease.

“If we discover the basic neurological biological rules of how these systems work, then that would suggest therapies,” Berry said.

Berry explained a lot about how the brains works and how people learn, because rabbits and humans have similar brains, but said applying their research to humans is still far off.

“There are hurdles to jump to do this with humans,” Berry said, adding now that this research is out it might be a bit easier.

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