In neurobiology, Hood and his colleagues were the first to clone and study the myelin basic protein (MBP) gene. The MBP is a central component in the sheath that wraps and protects neurons. Hood demonstrated that the condition called "shiverer mouse" arose from a defect in the MBP gene. Hood's research group corrected the neurological defect in mice (the shiverer defect) by transferring a normal MBP gene into the fertilized egg of the shiverer mouse. These discoveries led to extensive studies of MBP and its biology.