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posted by martyb on Wednesday August 19 2015, @01:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the Flowers-for-Algernon dept.

As reported in Science Daily, researchers at University of Leeds have created unusually intelligent mice [abstract only] by altering a single gene and as a result the mice were also less likely to feel anxiety or recall fear.

In behavioural tests, the...mice showed enhanced cognitive abilities. They tended to learn faster, remember events longer and solve complex exercises better than ordinary mice.

For example, the "brainy mice" showed a better ability than ordinary mice to recognise another mouse that they had been introduced to the day before. They were also quicker at learning the location of a hidden escape platform in a test called the Morris water maze.

They also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice which could be of interest to researchers looking for treatments for pathological fear, typified by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Ordinary mice are naturally fearful of cats, but these mice showed a decreased fear response to cat urine, suggesting that one effect could be an increase in risk-taking behaviour.

The researchers are now working on developing drugs that will be tested in animals to see whether any would be suitable for clinical trials in humans.


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  • (Score: 1) by ThePhilips on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:09PM

    by ThePhilips (5677) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:09PM (#224981)

    Ordinary mice are naturally fearful of cats, but these mice showed a decreased fear response to cat urine, suggesting that one effect could be an increase in risk-taking behaviour.

    In other words, intelligence makes you dumber?...

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:24PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:24PM (#224992) Journal

    No pain, no gain.

    Also, that's exactly like Toxoplasma gondii: [livescience.com]

    Ingram isn't sure the mechanism involved in the long-term behavior change, though she speculates the parasite may disrupt the smell region of a mouse's brain, preventing the rodent from detecting cat odor that would trigger the fear. Another possibility is that the parasite directly modifies mouse brain cells that are linked to memory and learning.

    Toxoplasma gondii is found throughout the world and infects a large number of mammals, including humans. However, the protozoan can only reproduce within the bodies of cats, and in mice, the mind-controlling parasite has evidently evolved to make mice unafraid of felines and even, according to some research, sexually attracted to the odor of cat urine; this makes it more likely infected mice will be eaten, and the parasite will make it back into a cat to spawn.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:25PM

    by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:25PM (#224994)

    It depends. Are the mice engaging in more dangerous behavior to gain a material advantage like extra food, or are they engaging in more dangerous behavior while taking selfies and squeaking "YOLO!" ?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @03:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @03:07PM (#225027)

      From TFA:

      We exploited murine aversion to cat odors (Vyas et al, 2007) by baiting a T-maze with food pellets in one arm and bobcat urine in the opposite arm. PDE4B+/+ mice avoided the bobcat urine arm, whereas PDE4BY358C/Y358C mice explored both arms equally (Figure 2d). This difference was not attributable to impaired olfaction (Supplementary Figure 3a).

      I can't find the supplements on the journal page, so cannot check that. But figure 2d shows the normal mice had ~40% "Cat Urine Arm Visits" and the mutant mice had ~50% of these (I am guessing that means percent of total arm visits). It is not really clear, but sounds like they may have had less opportunity for food if spending more time exploring that cat urine arm. If they were less hungry you would get such an effect. However, from the description, it is possible they spent more time in the food arm and just popped their head in the urine one a few times.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @03:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 19 2015, @03:54PM (#225053)

      We have previously shown that decreasing environmental threat by dimming the lights results in increased exploration with consequent improvement in memory

      It sounds like all these results could also be explained if the knockout had some effect on eyesight or light sensitivity. In the extreme case of the mice being blind they would be unaware they are in open areas and need to rely upon smell and hearing. They would need to explore new environments to a greater extent and be less reliant upon visual cues. Maybe not though, not enough info available at this point.

  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:41PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:41PM (#225002) Journal

    Why do you think so few species evolved human levels of intelligence? It takes opposable thumbs and culture before the thinking too much thing starts to pay off.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:49PM

    by Francis (5544) on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:49PM (#225009)

    Not really. Most people have more than enough fear than they really need. What this means is that the motivation becomes more based upon intellect than on emotion. So, you'll still try to avoid the unpleasant outcome, but you'll have more options as to how you do that. Rather than just running. It also means that those minor things that people are afraid of like doing their taxes or giving a public speech are also not going to have as much of an impact on the person.

    It's a rather unfortunate quirk of evolution that we fear what we fear and there's not always a good correlation between how scary something is and how dangerous it is or how imininent it is.