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by themafia 313 days ago
Wild mice do not get AD. Even if you let them achieve old age they do not develop the same brain plaques or tangles that are linked to Alzheimers.

Even if they did you'd have to run huge samples then do post testing necropsies to see which mice had AD which which didn't, then filter your data, then try to find results in what remains.

Otherwise you can inject the mice with a chemical known to cause AD, which is not reliable on it's own, so you can get genetically modified mice which express _some_ of the known plaques and misfolds that are associated with human AD.

Animal testing is still, largely, a very unethical and cruel affair. AD testing in mice is especially fraught with hazard.

1 comments

If you believe the paper, the authors were able to create symptoms and plaques similar to AD just by reducing lithium levels in the diet of these mice.