Three Biology undergraduate students from Malcolm Maden’s Lab, Nicole Serrano (BS 2017), Monica Bermudez (BS 2019) and Aaron Sandoval (BS 2019) have co-authored a study published in the Journal of Anatomy (2020; 00:1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13373) entitled “A profusion of neural stem cells in the brain of the spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus.” The three undergraduates conducted research in the Maden Lab during most of the time that they were undergraduates. Sandoval won a Marshall Scholarship and is studying for a Masters degree at Cambridge, UK before going to medical school; Serrano is undertaking a nursing degree in New York; and Bermudez hopes to obtain a place in a Physician’s Assistant program.
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Neural stem cells are present in the adult brain of mammals and are involved in i) learning and memory and ii) replacement of olfactory neurons (smell). Since they can also divide upon stimulation such as brain damage it has been suggested that they may be used for the repair of the brain e.g. after stroke or other brain injuries, but this has not been demonstrated in mice or rats. We have examined the presence of neural stem cells in the brain of spiny mice which we already know have prodigious powers of regeneration of several tissues – skin, muscle, heart, kidney. Amazingly we find that there are 10-fold more proliferating cells in the learning and memory location in the spiny mouse brain compared to the lab mouse brain and in the other region of neural stem cells there are 3-fold higher levels of proliferation and 3-fold more cells in the spiny mouse. We suggest that in addition to having improved learning and memory and smell, the spiny mouse may be able to use these increased stem cell numbers for brain repair which will be our next subject of experimentation.