Slashdot Log In
Drug Reverses Retardation In Mice
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jun 27, 2008 07:33 AM
from the give-my-regards-to-algernon dept.
from the give-my-regards-to-algernon dept.
snydeq writes "Rapamycin, a medication doctors prescribe to transplant patients to prevent organ rejection, has been used to reverse learning disorders and mild retardation associated with TSC (tuberous sclerosis complex) in mice. Because the condition is linked to autism, scientists believe the drug may be used to treat learning disabilities and short-term memory deficits in all kinds of autism as well. The scientists chose rapamycin after they realized the drug regulates one of the same proteins that the TSC gene does, just in different parts of the body. 'What was surprising is that we could give rapamycin to adult mice and reverse their condition,' said neurobiologist Alcino Silva of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. 'We did not know ... that this drug would be equally effective for the learning disabilities as it is for tissue rejection.' Rapamycin treatment leveled the playing field between normal and TSC mice in as little as three days."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
flowers for algernon (Score:5, Interesting)
make sure it doesn't wear off after a little while
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If it becomes permanent, then you've got the Rats (or Mice) of NIMH. ;)
Re:flowers for algernon (Score:5, Funny)
It turns them into Nickel Metal Hydride? Hmm, that makes a fully mouse operated home generator/backup system more feasible when you can use the brainy mice as batteries while their slightly moronic brethren run around on wheels all day.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
LOL! ... No, that would be NiMH, not NIMH. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Frisby_and_the_Rats_of_NIMH [wikipedia.org]
Re:flowers for algernon (Score:4, Funny)
We could then jack them into a "matrix" of batteries while feeding them a VR version of reality. That is until the NEO mouse evolves.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The Rescue Aid Society [wikipedia.org] would probably send out a team (possibly with an old Powerbook) before Neo finished buying all his virtual monochrome CRTs (cheese rendering tubes) off of eBay.
Re:flowers for algernon (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. I read that book 15 years ago and it still stands out in my mind how sad the degradation is. It is one of my worst nightmare to eventually lose my reasoning capacities.
Parent
Re:flowers for algernon (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously. I read that book 15 years ago and it still stands out in my mind how sad the degradation is. It is one of my worst nightmare to eventually lose my reasoning capacities.
LOL! ME 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Parent
Re:flowers for algernon (Score:4, Funny)
As funny as this [slashdot.org]?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife's grandfather had Parkinson's disease. As his disease progressed, his body gave out more and more. In addition to that, his mind slowly unwound as well. One day he would be perfectly lucid. The next, he would be talking to me about a "yesterday" that was really twenty years ago. It was sad to watch him slowly sink away physically and mentally. I'm still not sure which is worse, but I hope that I never have to experience that myself (or have any of my close loved ones go through that). I'd rat
sadly too late .. (Score:4, Funny)
... for president bush to be of use i think.
Parent
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Great!!! Now how can we get this drug out to 80% of the population quickly enough?
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Your estimate is high. Only 50.7% require it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_US_presidential_election [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhm, wrong. Both parties consist mostly of criminals (lobbying = corruption, even if by the book it is legal). And both parties vote against public good. The populicrats just prefer the copyright mafia, robbing taxpayers and so on.
The few honest politicians can be found in both parties.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right, both parties consist of mostly criminals, but at least the Democrat pols can pretend to give a shit about people beneath them.
Cheers.
Should Mod to Funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your estimate is high. Only 50.7% require it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_US_presidential_election [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
I'm a Republican, a Bush and now McCain supporter, and have more troll points on slashdot to prove my right wing cred, and I don't find this offensive at all. Come on people, lighten up. This was -funny-. If I would have been first to the joke, I would have made the same crack going the other way. The more seriously we take our political affiliations, the more we are trapped into the political parties that really don't represent us!
After all, can't we say: "Christ, Bush is such a great oil man, that he goes and invades the world's largest untapped source of oil, and now gas is $5 / gallon."
Parent
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Press: What's your plan to make health care affordable for all Americans?
Candidate Puppy (chews on tennis ball, chases tail): Woof!
Voters: Awwwwww!
Parent
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, it won't work. Although you were joking, I uncharacteristically jumped straight to TFA on this one, as my oldest daughter's IQ measures at 65. That's about five points lower than Forest Gump, if I remember the movie correctly.
Sadly, this treatment only fights Darwin. TFA says
A million people might not seem rare, but consider that there are six billion people on the planet. From a link from TFA:
Most mental retardation is caused by injury.
A bit offtopic, but the US public school system, bad as it is for average (IQ 100) kids, it fails miserably for both "special" and "gifted" students; my youngest's IQ is 131 and she wound up dropping out (later getting her GED and now manages a GameStop store at age 21) while the oldest graduated high school an got her diploma but lives on SSI disability.
The US public school system is badly broken.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
She's planning on college with a major in music. That's my fault, I'm afraid; I play guitar. When the kids were little I'd start playing and they'd run into the room I was in and plop down on the floor making requests. "Play the one about our eyes!"
See, I'd change the lyrics so that the songs were about them. Leila (the oldest) has always been terrified of storms. She had the uncanny ability to predict the weather. If it was going to rain, she would know when to within twenty minutes. I have no idea how she
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Great!!! Now how can we get this drug out to 80% of the population quickly enough?
Put it in expensive bottled water.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Every Rose Has Its Thorn (Score:4, Informative)
It's not that bad! (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been taking this drug for years. I'll tell ya, having three or four mouth sores at all times helps you lose weight! And when you can't come to work for a month because of a raging... common cold, your idiot boss totally understands!
Sigh... luckily, these days, I'm on a lower dosage (and with a different boss).
Parent
Finally a cure (Score:5, Funny)
Jack Thompson (Score:3, Funny)
Jack needs to be volunteered to be the first human test subject. If it can cure him, it'll cure anyone.
$1k per month (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$1k per month (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Oh, Please (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at you. Sitting there, presumably in full control of your faculties, able to socialize, to date, to start and raise a family, to use your time as you wish, to banter back and forth on websites, or read a book, to build a career and take pride in your accomplishments, to further your education and expand your horizons.
Do you even KNOW anybody who suffers from any of these mild-to-mid-grade mental deficiencies? And I don't mean know OF, I mean KNOW and care for?
If you did, you'd see very clearly the tragedy that is a person who much of the time seems completely healthy and normal.
Wouldn't it be GREAT if pharma would give these things away for free? Sure. But this world today is not perfect. And you can't expect just a single industry to "disarm" and go socialized. Even if it WOULD benefit us all.
There's a test you can apply here: When a pharma company spends $1bn researching a drug that ends-up a flop, should we as taxpayers refund that cash to them? If the answer is "no," then you can't begrudge them for taking profits where they can.
And as much as I hate paying $4 for gas, I could say the same about oil: I don't know about you, but 8, 9 years ago when gas was $0.85/gallon, I never decided to pay $1.50 just to help out. Oil companies collapsed and consolodated when Oil was $20/barrel and now, I can't begrudge them for taking profits where they can.
Remember, nearly all of us are shareholders in these companies, whether directly, thru a 401k, thru a pension, thru a union, thru your local government which often invests a portion of its cash-on-hand, etc.
So the drug costs $1k. That's the reality of it. To suggest that being a "slave to the pharma industry" is as bad as being a prisoner of your own reduced faculties shows an abject lack of understanding, not to mention, a serious empathy deficit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a test you can apply here: When a pharma company spends $1bn researching a drug that ends-up a flop, should we as taxpayers refund that cash to them? If the answer is "no," then you can't begrudge them for taking profits where they can.
You have, in fact, paid for that $1bn of "failed" research. You have paid it by tax money, and you have paid it by buying viagra,anti-depressants or any "lifestyle" drug for that matter. You have paid it because your government is protecting the patents of big farma, everyday, everywhere in the planet.
Yet you still don't "get" it, and you sympathize for the money "lost" in research. Exploratory Research into new drugs can never "fail". Its exploratory, and the benefits may or may not come.
A cure for those
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Changing the way society performs economic relations is not something five people can gather and do. It takes a deep social change to do experiments like the one you propose.
I'm not a naysayer of the drug. I 'm a naysayer of the process. And of the people that say "Oh will please think of billion-dollar-rich-cigar-holding-government-overthrowing Pharma CEOs?"
Don't argue with me about. Just ponder at the fact that deseases like malaria kill millions, while Pharma is fighting poor erections. If you think that
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
in full control of your faculties, able to socialize, to date, to start and raise a family
If you think this is the kind of people who hang out here, you must be new.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Being a member of a family with a severely autistic child (my nephew), I can tell you that giving up a bit of cash to the pharmaceutical industry (th
Re:$1k per month (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Autism Affects 1 in 160 Children in the US (Score:5, Informative)
Eight years too late. (Score:3, Funny)
Or two legislatures, as you prefer.
Science has to be stopped. (Score:3, Funny)
If they cure autism, what am I supposed to do to find postal codes if Billy the office cleanup boy is cured? Look them up online?
Cod Liver Oil (Score:4, Interesting)
Make sure you get plenty of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids while you're growing up (good source = cod liver oil), and you can avoid many mental problems in the first place [bbc.co.uk]
As a parent of an Autistic... (Score:5, Insightful)
...let me say that any hope is a good hope. This condition is a far, far greater burden than you probably realize, and to date most of medical science is still groping in the dark.
My son's neurologist actually prescribed an anti-psychotic to a three-year-old boy. One that, by the way, had NEVER been tested on children and was not FDA approved for that purpose.
There are some voodoo-science options as well. Some work all the time for certain cases, while others do not work at all. Gluten-free/Casen-free diet, Omega3's, Anti-Fungals etc, etc, etc. If you take information like this to a practicing MD they are quite likely to either roll their eyes our laugh outright. Still, there are those that swear by them.
This is where we presently sit.
Imagine having a young man, totally dependent on you, who is struggling not only to fit in, but to avoid punishment for perfectly natural behaviors. Now imagine the feeling when the realization sets in that you simply will not ever be able to 'fix' him, no matter how much parenting you may apply. In fact, try though you do, at the end of the day it feels like no one has helped him at all.
Any hope is a good hope.
Re:As a parent of an Autistic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Amen to that - I'm looking forward to taking my severely autistic stepson out to the Brooklands Double Twelve this Sunday, and will be taking the utmost pleasure from seeing him enjoy himself among all the old racing cars.
The behavioural problems we can cope with, but he's physically handicapped as well, so in residential care.
But every Sunday, come rain or shine, it's Josh's day.
Parent
And as an adult who is Autistic... (Score:3, Insightful)
"As a parent of an Autistic... who has a young man ... who is struggling not only to fit in, but to avoid punishment for perfectly natural behaviours." ... and "Any hope is a good hope "
And as an adult who is Autistic, I've come to realize that we don't need to fit in. Some people will accept us the way we are and some people will not. I see no reason to have to change my behaviour to conform to the expectations of the ones who don't want to accept me the way I am. I see no reason to be insecure about who I
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Any hope is a good hope."
Not really. False hope is terrible. My nephew is Autistic and the amount of total junk being tried just makes me nuts.
In this case I am just praying that this is real hope.
So will it be cheaper than treating the cause? (Score:3, Insightful)
But then again, when you consider a does of medication that costs 3000 dollars, why would anyone want to cure such a profitable disorder?
By November for the US? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it work in smaller doses? (Score:4, Funny)
How many would you have to take before you can correctly pronounce "nuclear"? Because I can think of at least one really important person who needs to learn that already.
Wake me up when... (Score:5, Funny)
Retarded Mice? (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally... (Score:3, Funny)
Finally, a way to rid the world of retarded mice.
Re:Retarded mice (Score:5, Funny)
How do they know which mice are retarded or not? Give them the cheese test?
They see if the mice RTFA and actually understand it.
My daughter's cat is pretty damned dumb, it moves its lips when it reads.
Parent