Misfiring motor neurons (IMAGE)
Caption
The motor neurons that retract the tongue are labeled green, and those that protrude the tongue are labeled red in this image of the brainstem from a newborn mouse. The activity of these two populations of motor neurons is not coordinated properly in mice with the same mutation that causes human DiGeorge syndrome, according to scientists with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and George Washington University. This lack of coordination likely underlies suckling, feeding, and swallowing difficulties in the mice, and perhaps human infants with the disorder, which occurs in newborns when a piece of the 22nd chromosome is missing.
Credit
Image courtesy of Anthony LaMantia/Virginia Tech and Xin Wang & Anastas Popratiloff/George Washington University
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