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Drug Reverses Retardation In Mice
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jun 27, 2008 08:33 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."
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flowers for algernon (Score:5, Interesting)
make sure it doesn't wear off after a little while
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: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
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
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: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
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)
Autism Affects 1 in 160 Children in the US (Score:5, Informative)
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
By November for the US? (Score:4, Funny)
Wake me up when... (Score:5, Funny)
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:$1k per month (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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