More Sources?

The hunt continues for more sources.

Usually, finding sources for a topic is fairly easy. There are a gazillion sources out there on transgenic animals right?

Well that's what I thought until I was searching for sources that narrowed down to transgenic animals and their role in the research of neurodegenerative diseases.
Whenever the topic of writing a paper comes up with my friends, I tell them what my topic is. Before I can even get past saying "transgenic mice and their..." they cut me off with a look of displeasure and mercy. Frankly, I find this topic quite interesting and bearable with the exception of finding sources.
The topic of transgenic animals is broad. In the beginning of my research, I simply typed in "Transgenic Animals" into the search bar and thousands of scholarly sources came up. Yes, scholarly. The topics of these sources were quite broad, which is how I found my topic for the paper. I settled with transgenic animals and neurodegenerative diseases. I started to scout for more sources for my research since I do need at least 5 scholarly, peer-reviewed sources. Entering "Transgenic Animals and Neurodegenerative diseases" only gave me hundreds of sources. This number decreased as I filtered the results.

After an accumulation of several hours, I have five solid scholarly sources so far.
The two I have not shared yet on this blog are "Transgenic animal models of Alzehimer's disease and related disorders: histopathology, behavior and therapy" by J Götz et al. and "Alpha-synuclein and transgenic mouse models" by Pierre-Oliver Fernagut and Marie-Fancoise Chesselet.
Both of these sources explain the research and discoveries made with transgenic mice.

Götz et al. wrote "Transgenic animal models of Alzehimer's disease and related disorders: histopathology, behavior and therapy"in 2004 before A Decade of Tau Transgenic Animal Models and Beyond was written in 2007, which I talked about in a previous post, Neurodegenerative Diseases. In his earlier paper, Götz et al. not only focuses on tau transgenic mice, but also β-Amyloid transgenic mice. Here, β-Amyloid mice were used to observe the relationship between the amount of β-Amyloid present in the brain and memory impairment. The β-Amlyoid mice confirmed their theory. Mice with greater levels of β-Amlyoid in the brain resulted in greater memory impairment. This is a great finding because it lets researchers know what is associated with memory impairment, one of the greatest and most dangerous symptoms of Alzheimer's. Thanks to transgenic mice, researchers can now utilize this knowledge to move to the next step into the finding a cure for Alzheimer's.

In "Alpha-synuclein and transgenic mouse models," Fernagut and Chesselet used transgenic mice for researching Parkinson Disease. Unlike the other sources I am using, this one is not about the findings of how transgenic mice have made a contribution to learning more about Parkinson Disease. The animals did not display what the researchers hoped the mice would. Fernagut and Chesselet expected dopaminergic neuronal death in the substantial nigra. But instead, the mice expressed inconclusive results of the relationship between α-syn and dopamine dysfunction. Despite the failure in their experiment, Fernagut and Chesselet were still satisfied with the mice models and will remain to use transgenic animals for alternatives. The models captured the features and characteristics of Parkinson Disease. Researchers find this relevant and important because these mice can be used to test another hypothesis that increased levels of α-syn predispose relating to the development of the diseases. The mice will be used to receive a better understanding of α-syn. 

I found these sources to be quite useful in my paper for they will support my argument of the contributions that transgenic mice have made to the researching of neurodegenerative diseases. I will continue to share more sources in the following post or two.

Literature Review

This week, I started the literature review assignment for my research paper. Actually, I just started this 1500 word paper yesterday, of course, being the procrastinator that I am. On top of starting just two days before the rough draft was due, I only got as far as writing a solid forty words that I completely deleted and rewrote today.

Usually, I don't have trouble writing an assignment like this since it is mostly factual and supposed to maintain a neutral and unbiased tone. But for some reason, I could not gather any ideas of what I should write. I would have to say I do partially blame myself for not engaging enough with my sources beforehand. But I also was not sure what exactly this literature review should contain. Yes, I know it's a paper introducing my topic, summarizing and evaluating my sources. But how factual is my tone supposed to be? What goes into my introduction? How is this different from my research paper?

It was not until I turned to trusty google and looked up "literature review." After reading a webpage from UNC College of Arts and Science's Writing Center and an example provided by my professor, I gained a better understanding of what I should include in this Literature Review.

Hopefully, my rough draft of the assignment meets the requirements of a Literature review and receives some positive feedback despite my last minute writing manner. In the future, when the time comes for me to start my research paper, I will start my paper earlier. This way, I will have more time to think about what to write rather than sitting there scavenging for things to say when I am clearly having writer's block. 
After all, they say writing is a process. A piece is never final and complete. 

Neurodegenerative diseases

Transgenic animals have come a long way in the research in the medical field to be a part of the research of neurodegenerative diseases. That's right, who would have thought that a small mouse, a commonly unappreciated rodent, would play such a large role to the human species?

Surprisingly, it's true. Transgenic mice may just be the hero for many patients with neurodegenerative diseases. In a previous post, Beginning the Research, I found an article, that explained how transgenic mice are used to model diseases for scientists and researchers to better understand the disease. According to this article, the triple transgenic mice model is the reason we are one big step closer to finding the cure for Alzheimer's Disease. I'm sure you all agree with me that this is great news because we know how dangerous Alzheimer's can be.

This article sparked my interest and gave me the idea to write my paper on transgenic mice and neurodegenerative diseases.

After doing some more research I stumbled upon two great scholarly sources that I intend to use in my paper.

A Decade of Tau Transgenic Animal Models and Beyond talks about a type of transgenic animal models, tau, and their role in Alzheimer's disease. Tau is a microtubule-assisted protein that is present in neurons. Researchers are experimenting with tau transgenic mice models because they believe that tau proteins triggers the disintegration of microtubules. Tau transgenic animal models identify disease modifiers, express genes and proteins, and develop new therapeutic strategies.

Transgenic animal models of neurodegenerative diseases and their application to treatment development is an article on neurodegenerative diseases in general instead of just Alzheimer's. Instead of focusing on tau transgenic animal models like the other article, this one focuses on the misfolded proteins. Many neurodegenerative diseases, not just Alzheimer's, are caused by aggregate proteins, proteins that are accumulated in areas such as the plasma membrane, intercellular and extracellular spaces. In this research, they use biological mouse models to better understand the pathogenesis and to discover and test new treatments. Each model targets a selective factor and mimic a specific condition of the researched disease.

Both articles remind me of how advanced technology is today. It amazes me how mice can be used to represent not just a disease as a whole, but specific characteristics of the diseases, such as tau and misfolded proteins, to learn how that one thing affects the complex disease. I will be using both articles in my research to show how transgenic animals are significant in the medical world. Centuries and decades ago, people would not have guessed the large role that these little creatures could play.