Study Examines Recovery of Young Monkey Brains

A Sacramento researcher has found that monkeys who lose the function of certain areas of the brain at a very young age recover much better than adult monkeys who suffer the same injuries. This suggests that the young monkeys' brains are somehow fixing themselves.

This may offer insight into possible ways to treat cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders.

“Basically the brain has rewired itself in some way,” said one of the study's three co-authors, David Amaral, research director of the University of California Davis Mind Institute. “If you understand what's happening here, that's the first step to trying to promote that kind of (brain) reorganization in disorders like cerebral palsy.”

The Study

Amaral and his research team are monitoring the development of 24 rhesus macaque monkeys at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis.

They hope to compare the development of monkeys who suffer two types of injuries to the development of healthy monkeys, including how they form relationships, and other behaviors.

Eight of the monkeys had a toxin injected into their brains during infancy to destroy nerve cells in the hippocampus, which is an area of the brain used for memory storage. Eight other monkeys had neurons in their amygdalae destroyed. This part of the brain is involved in experiencing and responding to fear. The remaining eight monkeys were given a mock surgery for comparison.

The effects of the injuries were tested months later by having the monkeys search for grapes hidden under cups.

The grapes were hidden under upside-down cups. In every test, certain cups were always empty and others always contained the grapes. Adult monkeys who had their hippocampuses damaged could never remember where the grapes were hidden. They overturned cups randomly until they found food.

The young monkeys that had their hippocampuses injured, however, remembered where the grapes were just as well as the undamaged adults.

This tells researchers that something is going on in the developing brains of young monkeys that allows them to compensate for these types of injuries.

If your child has sustained a birth injury and developed cerebral palsy, contact a cerebral palsy attorney who can help protect your child's rights.