Quote Originally Posted by paulh View Post
1. Is there a malfunction in a specific area of the brain that causes the wobble? Or a malfunction in the balance organs? Some other malfunction? Might microscopic examination of the brain/head turn up whatever causes the malfunction? How might covering the eyes or plugging the labial pits affect wobbling?
It's really, really hard to get permission to look at vertebrate brains in scientific research - even the 'unpopular' animals (e.g. rats, mice are less sympathetic to the public than bunnies) and even for research that has direct impacts on human disease treatment.

If you could get snake owners/breeders from all over to donate naturally deceased spider-gene-containing animals, you could do some autopsy comparisons, but my guess is that 'wobble' is a biochem or live tissue problem - brains the size of ball pythons don't typically have architectural defects without lethality. Furthermore, there is no degeneration of the 'wobble' (critters don't get worse), so whatever it is, it's stable within the individual.

The University of California at Berkeley has a preparatory lab that accepts donated animals of all kinds (really) for dissection by classes and lab techs for species descriptions, preservation, and comparative anatomy. They might need a small donation/grant/endowment to set up enough space and time to look at that many of a single species, but if you're really excited about it, you should contact them and see!