Effective working memory, attention, decision-making – functions requiring “accurate and precise timing judgment” – are crucially dependent upon tiny, antenna-like cell projections in the brain known as cilia, a new research revealed.
While studies originally hailing back to over a century ago deemed cilia - hair-like organelles found on nearly all cell types of the human body – of a vestigial nature, a team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, discovered that their removal from the brain’s striatum region “impaired time perception and judgment.”
These latter deficiencies are typically associated with mental and neurological conditions such as schizophrenia, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, autism spectrum disorder, and Tourette syndrome.
For their study, results of which were published in Molecular Neurobiology, the team used conditional gene manipulation technology to remove cilia from the brain’s striatum in mice.
When the rodents were then sent to navigate a succession of mazes to test their ability to recognize objects and locations, it was found that their ability to grasp new motor tasks was impaired. They also displayed delays in decision-making and showed loss of ability to quickly alter behavior in response to a changing environment.
“When that capacity is impaired, it means losing the ability to quickly adjust behavior in response to changes in external stimuli and failing to sustain appropriate, goal-oriented motor responses. Our ongoing work is aimed at understanding the mechanisms by which cilia regulate time perception and developing targeted therapies to improve behavioral deficits,” UCI neuroscientist Amal Alachkar was cited as saying by UCI.
The researchers believe that further studies may prove that a human brain's cilia work in a similar way. This could, accordingly, prove instrumental in elaborating effective "cilia-targeted therapies for treatment," Alachkar added.