Ancient Egyptian mummies could provide vital clues about the historical incidence of diabetes, alcoholism and other disorders.

Scientists have found that preserved nerves in the mummies still contain the chemicals their cells used to communicate.

Researchers hope that studying these neurotransmitters might yield clues about the kind of diseases that afflicted our ancestors.

Pharoah Ramses III: Preserved for the future

A team from University College, London, took nerves from the ankles of seven Egyptian mummies embalmed between 2,000 and 3,500 years ago and from a 1,000-year-old Peruvian mummy, according to the New Scientist magazine.

"It's incredible to think that you can find things that are identifiable as nerves and even detect their neurotransmitters when they've been lying there for three and a half thousand years," one of the scientists, Charles Hoyle, told New Scientist.

After embedding the samples in wax and slicing them into sections the team incubated them with antibodies that recognise certain key neurotransmitters.

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Three of the mummies contained traces of a neurotransmitter called galanin.

One had a neurotransmitter called CGRP and two contained a third chemical, PGP 9.5.

Four mummies tested positive for an enzyme, nitric oxide synthase, which makes another important nerve signaller, nitric oxide.

According to the man behind the project, Otto Appenzeller, retired professor of neurology and medicine at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, the discovery has more than novelty value.

Examining the mummies yielded one piece of new information relevant to the present day. The researchers found a particular nerve called the sural nerve normally contains nitric oxide synthase. This was confirmed by subsequent tests on modern tissue.

"It's ironic that we should make a discovery about modern nerves in 3,500-year-old tissue," said Appenzeller.

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