This Invasive Vampire Fish Is Helping Researchers Understand the Human Nervous System in Jaw-Dropping Ways | Smithsonian Magazine

With a suction-cup mouth and over 100 teeth, the sea lamprey has earned the nickname "vampire fish" and comparisons to sea monsters. Sea lampreys are one of the world’s most ancient fish species, killing prey by latching their suction-cup mouth onto a fish's skin and rasping away the fish's flesh with a rough tongue to feed on blood and bodily fluids.

Sea lampreys sound like something from a horror movie, but the creatures have been crucial to almost two centuries of neuroscience research. Neuroscientists study sea lamprey spinal cells, which the animals can regenerate if their spinal cord is damaged, as a model to understand the human nervous system, spinal cord injuries and neurological disease. The evolution of human brains and nervous systems is also closely tied to these alien-like creatures.

Neurologists and zoologists began studying lampreys in the 1830s, examining their nerve cells to understand how the spinal cord works. Lamprey research took off after 1959, when biologists first described lampreys’ ability to regenerate spinal cord neurons and eventually swim after spinal damage.

Sea lampreys are ideal for neuroscientists to work with because the animals have large nerve cells and synapses, making observation easier than in other species. “The synapses are so big that you can see them, and you can record from them and access them very easily,” says Jennifer Morgan, neuroscientist at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory. Read rest of the article here.

Source: This Invasive Vampire Fish Is Helping Researchers Understand the Human Nervous System in Jaw-Dropping Ways | Smithsonian Magazine