Mouse Models for Neuroscience Research

Welcome to the CRE-driver network established by the NIH Neuroscience Blueprint. The goal of the project is to provide the Neuroscience Community with mouse strains that are suitable for the tissue and cell-type-specific perturbation of gene function in the nervous system. The use of experimental animals is widely recognized as a critical component in furthering biomedical research, and there are many examples of transgenic mouse models for studying various human disorders. Many of the mouse models currently available are strict null mutants, which can have limited utility such as in the case of knockout lethality. Genetic knockouts that are spatially and/or temporally restricted may circumvent lethality and gene compensatory issues and can provide for a more detailed analysis of particular gene products in specified regions or in critical developmental periods at different ages. The NIH Neuroscience Blueprint has established three centers in the USA for the generation of genetically modified mice expressing CRE recombinases in the nervous system on the C57BL6/J genetic background.

The mice will be widely available to the Neuroscience Community. The mouse lines are generated at Cold Spring Harbor Lab, at Scripps Research Institute, and at Baylor College of Medicine.