All the Ways We Can Mess Up Your Brain

Yesterday we told you all about a recent study where a group of researchers identified the genes responsible for brain development in the womb. We pointed out, in our usual excitable way, that this discovery is the first step on the road to tinkering with those genes to produce mega-geniuses and mindless drones. The researchers made their discovery using a cool, high-speed method of identifying active genes called RNA interference (RNAi), which selectively suppresses gene activity. Here you can see the results of the RNAi process, which left a whole bunch of brain neurons in pretty bad shape . Above, the only untreated neuron is (A) — all the rest are RNAi mutants, whose weird shapes reveal what the suppressed genes do. Check out more mutated brains below. More »