To address challenges in human medicine, we need to draw from a wide range of model systems,” says Christine Charvet, a comparative neuroscientist at Auburn University. "Cats, lemurs, mice are all useful. We shouldn't focus all our efforts on one." This highlights the importance of diversity in study models for understanding human health.
The Translating Time project started in the 1990s as a tool for developmental biologists. Project scientists compiled data on how long it takes for the brain to reach a range of developmental milestones in a variety of mammals and used these data to graph the relative development of two species over time.
As cats age, their brains show signs of atrophy and cognitive decline that more closely resemble the deterioration seen in ageing humans than do the changes in the brains of ageing mice.
The results are part of a large project, called Translating Time, that compares brain development across more than 150 mammal species, and is now expanding to include data on aging.
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