Sensing Disease

If you hold your hand over a flame, the temperature is sensed by receptors on sensory neurons in your skin. These neurons send electrical signals along their thread-like axons to your spine and brain. It’s here that your body makes a subconscious decision to respond, perhaps by moving your hand away. However, people with the genetic disease Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) type 2D can’t sense touch in their arms, hands, legs or feet. While scientists have identified genetic mutations associated with the disease, it wasn't clear how the mutations caused the symptoms. To find out more researchers compared the sensory neurons of healthy mice with mice that had CMT. Pictured (represented in four different colour combinations) is a cluster of normal mouse sensory neurons, including those that sense the body’s position in space (proprioception), touch and pain. The team found that these sensory neurons didn’t develop properly in mice with the disease.

Written by Charlotte Rose Davison

Charlotte Rose Davison

Former MRC LMS Visiting Writer

A recent University of Nottingham graduate, Charlotte is now a PhD candidate funded by the BBSRC. She has an unhealthy fascination with parasites and genetic abnormalities, which she loves to communicate to anyone who will listen.

• Image by James N. Sleigh, UCL, UK
• Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
• Image copyright held by original authors
• Research published in PNAS, April 2017