Year: 1996
Type: article
Abstract: As in other areas of biology, the study of behavior has relied on model organisms that lend themselves primarily to either a genetic or a cell biological approach, but not both. Yet, by themselves, each of these approaches has limitations. Genetic approaches allow an unbiased search for new genes and a delineation of genetic pathways. These advantages carry with them the limitations that the function of the gene so identified may not be well understood and may therefore be only peripherally involved in the behavior of interest. By contrast, cell biological approaches are useful for analyzing how a gene works. But these analyses are often carried out in artificially reduced systems that may not allow the establishment of a causal relationship between the cellular function of that gene and the consequences of perturbing that function for behavior in the intact animal. In the past, the limitations of each of these approaches restricted the depth to which any model organism could be used for exploring behavioral mechanisms. But now, as a result of the ability to clone genes from any species and to recognize the homology of genes identified independently in different contexts, the information obtained in a cell biologically tractable system can be advanced by findings emerging from genetically tractable systems and vice versa.
Source: Neuron
Authors: Kelsey C. Martin, Eric R. Kandel
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $10,400
OpenAlex ID: W2084746466