Mice Brainpower Boosted With Alteration of a Single Gene 105
Zothecula writes: By altering a single gene to inhibit the activity of an enzyme called phosphodiesterase (PDE4B), researchers have given mice the opportunity to see what an increase in intelligence is like. "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 recognize another mouse that they had been introduced to the day before (abstract). They were also quicker at learning the location of a hidden escape platform in a test called the Morris water maze. However, the PDE4B-inhibited mice also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice." While many people would welcome such a treatment, the scientists say their research could lead to new treatments for those with cognitive disorders and age-related cognitive decline.
Zoink (Score:4, Funny)
n/t
Narf! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Ahhh ... Pinky [wikia.com]
Re: (Score:2)
But can they play Brockian Ultra Cricket ?
Re: (Score:2)
I would laugh so hard... (Score:5, Funny)
But really I do look forward to what will happen someday if these cognitive enhancement drugs turn out to be safe and make people smarter. I am not talking a limitless sort of thing but what happens if a university course ends up be retuned to be just too difficult for most people unless they are taking these sorts of things? If that hasn't already happened with things like Modafinil.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
TFS:
However, the PDE4B-inhibited mice also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice
That would imply the mice have trouble learning not to play with cats. Not good for continued species survival.
Re: (Score:3)
I dunno--in modern society, things that seem viscerally scary are often important or necessary (nuclear power, say) and things that seem reasonable at first glance can be dangerous. Losing instinctive fear and replacing it with cold rationality seems like an improvement for species survival, depending on what you think the nastiest Great Filter is.
Re: (Score:3)
cold rationality is only going to work if you really understand what you're experiencing. When it comes to predators, you need to be able to think from their point of view. So far it's only known that humans can do that (and possibly our ancestors), and it's what gave us the advantage over everything else a few hundred thousand to a few million years ago. Being able to realise your smell, the sounds you make and your tracks are what your opponent are using to track you and using that knowledge to deliberate
Re: (Score:2)
Being able to realise your smell, the sounds you make and your tracks are what your opponent are using to track you and using that knowledge to deliberately mislead them is not a simple task.
I doubt the cognitive abilities of a mouse are really that advanced.
Probably not something that a mouse does, but these are exactly the things that a fox will do when trying to outsmart the dogs chasing him. Coyotes do things with their tracks that confuse people or dogs chasing them also. It can't be too advanced of a thought process if there are already natural animals that make use of it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's fine in the short run, but in the long run you're screwed. [netdna-cdn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
It's not fear of the technology itself, it's fear of it being spread in a way that increases inequality. In other words, fear of human nature.
If such a drug is developed, it will be expensive. Only people who already have a big advantage in education will be able to afford it. That will further increase the inequality with people who cannot afford it, creating social problems. It is already happening to an extent, with existing cognitive enhancing drugs, so it's not an unfounded fear.
Re: (Score:2)
TFS:
However, the PDE4B-inhibited mice also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice
That would imply the mice have trouble learning not to play with cats. Not good for continued species survival.
It seems like it's not "smarter" it's "more optimistic."
If you are a mouse, making a mistake is often your last one. There's going to be lots of stuff in mouse behavior that makes them not do stuff that might be a mistake but also might be a benefit because the benefit is food, sex, or water or something and the mistake is death.
It might be an interesting data point to find out how humans with this gene behave verses ones that done have that gene.
Re: (Score:2)
But I thought of Ceasar, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Re: (Score:1)
what is the hidden cost or mice allready would be smarter?
They'll start to think they're rats. And that's about all. Mice will never rule the world. Mice are significantly stupider than rats. If they did this same gene alteration to rats, however, we'd have an epidemic of technically proficient rats on our hands. OTOH, think of the market potential for used 3.5" iPhones!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You won't be laughing when this guy shows up:
https://triviahappy.com/wp-con... [triviahappy.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I just hope they don't enslave us and force us to watch The Secret of NIMH 2
*shudder*
Life expectancy (Score:1)
Methuselah Syndrome (Score:1)
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long -- and they burn so very, very brightly.
Re: (Score:1)
There can be only one!
Energy bottleneck (Score:2)
Usually, the bottleneck associated with bigger brain isn't lifespan, but energy expenditure.
Bigger brain eat up more energy and that must be balanced regarding cost/benefit.
- How much more food would an animal X find with the bigger brain vs. how much more food would the animal need to eat to sustain this brain ?
"bigger brain" mutation don't happen that much in the wild, and usually are being done by labs partly for this reason:
because lab mice are guaranteed to receive suffisient food and not starve.
human
Damn.... (Score:5, Funny)
Now the theme to Pinky and the Brain is stuck in my head. Even less conducive to getting work done than reading Slashdot.
And just now my coworker next to me just asked why I whispered "Narf".
Re: (Score:2)
I also chuckled at the classic literary reference in the article title.. "from the mice-of-nimh dept" :)
Re: (Score:2)
Of Mice and Men?
Re: (Score:2)
Apologies, I was thinking of the very next comment, Flowers From Algernon.
Flowers FROM Algernon? (Score:4, Interesting)
How smart are we talking here?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Dammit, I was going to ask if one of the mice was named Algernon.
Re:Flowers FROM Algernon? (Score:5, Funny)
The mouse was the Slashdot submitter.
Re: (Score:2)
Bravo sir.
Re: (Score:2)
...and you call that "smart"?
Re: (Score:2)
"The mouse was the Slashdot submitter."
So...not very. At least s/he was smarter than a SD editor.
Re: Flowers FROM Algernon? (Score:1)
Super-Race of Humans Next (Score:3)
To be competitive, I'm pretty sure certain nations would allow and/or require adjusting human brain genetics to breed a "super race" with superior intelligence, memory, and/or discipline.
I don't know how long a nation that forbids such could compete. If the super-brain nations become a threat, the hold-outs will be forced to tinker also.
Re: (Score:2)
I think what you just described is the origin story for the Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You're right. Somebody is going to try this. And a lot of people will loudly object.
But depending on how it turns out, everybody else will also.
And the result will be a caste society, with the fearless, superintelligent transhumans ruling the masses of those with random genotypes.
Our only hope is that, if performed on humans, it produces some crippling side effect, like the inability to use language.
Re: (Score:1)
It's really difficult to test such in a controlled way. Social factors are very difficult to tease out of the data. You'd practically have to clone nations and watch for several decades. Only God has those kinds of resources.
Re: (Score:1)
Yoh Mah Mah
I, for one, welcome (Score:1)
Our new 3D maze-acing, housecat-belling, mousetrap-defying, while getting the cheese anyway, blindfold chessplaying rodent Overlords.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: I, for one, welcome (Score:2)
No. They built the planet to find out the question, to which the answer is 42.
intellegent currency? (Score:2)
any currency to absolute dominance.
My dollar bills are smarter than your dollar bills?
Loss of memory, or just loss of fear? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, the PDE4B-inhibited mice also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice.
Perhaps being smarter enabled them to process the "fearful event", determine the cause of the fear, the amount of actual hazard and any risk mitigation actions they could take, and thus not be as "afeard" the next time that event happened?
That's what humans do. They get scared by something, realize that the fright was temporary and not based on an actual threat, and desensitize.
And my fist thought was "Flowers For Algernon", too.
Package in a retrovirus (Score:3)
Package it in a retrovirus and pass it around. And maybe we can use it to make an STD that will make people smarter. Stop being so damn conservative that you only use it on people with cognitive problems if society as a whole could benefit from fewer stupid people.
Re: (Score:2)
They who you gonna get to work at Wal-Mart? For that matter, who you gonna get to shop at Wal-Mart?
Re:Package in a retrovirus (Score:5)
'Stupid' is not just a matter of low intelligence. It's also a subject of cognitive biases and undisciplined thinking.
For a good example, look at Ben Carson, one of the Republican candidates. He has spouted a steam of policy positions that most people would regard as stupid: He suggested abolishing all taxes in favor of a fixed 10% income 'tithe' because that is what the bible specifies, he said that homosexuality must be a choice because people turn gay in prison, and he has claimed that the affordable care act enslaves people to the government. But is he stupid? Certainly not: Before going into politics he was a neurosurgeon, and a very good one too, one actively involved in research and responsible for developing new procedures. He is literally a brain surgeon.
What Carson shows is that it's quite possible for a person to be of brilliant intelligence, but still come to hold positions that are quite obviously ridiculous. Humans are not logical creatures by nature: Their minds are the product of a process that optimized for reproductive success. A cobbled-together tangle of heuristics.
Re: Package in a retrovirus (Score:1)
The idea that homosexuality has one and only one cause (either biology or choice) is silly. Most complex human behaviors have many inputs, and sexuality is very complex. The desire to reduce human sexuality to choice or biology is a desire to make a moral issue out of it or remove it from moral consideration, but not a desire to explain what is going on inside a person. If you believe that no one is predisposed to homosexuality but rather homosexuals all consciously choose to engage in homosexual acts, or i
Re: (Score:2)
The idea that homosexuality has one and only one cause (either biology or choice) is silly. Most complex human behaviors have many inputs, and sexuality is very complex.
The idea that it is a choice is just plain silly. I noticed about the time I hit puberty tht I found a certain reaction to long legged women, tall with a nice backside, and with long hair, and not large breasts. I never woke up one day and said "Hey - I think I'll go for tall, leggy women with nice asses, long legs, lonf hair and small tits." I kinda noticed because of reactions my own personal body had when seeing one. And not the obvious one, but just a heightened interest, and a greater enjoyment in lo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A friend once told me of a conversation he had with his dad:
Dad: "When did you decide you were going to be gay?" ...
Him: "When did you decide you were going to be straight?"
If you were expecting more after that build-up, I'm happy to disappoint. I think the point is made.
Re:Logical (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It also goes without saying that most every individual is likely to hold some position or behave in some man
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Just look at what SuricouRaven implies:
.
You are proving his point. You make fucking ridiculous long debunked claims, that normal people would howl at, but are smart enough to post as Anonymous Coward so we do't have a name to laugh at.
Science would beg to disagree (Score:2)
Maybe, but we're working on it pretty hard, and in the meantime we could always just add it to an existing STD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Package it in a retrovirus and pass it around. And maybe we can use it to make an STD that will make people smarter. Stop being so damn conservative that you only use it on people with cognitive problems if society as a whole could benefit from fewer stupid people.
Genomes are usually well balanced and it is difficult to globally "improve" healthy people with a single mutation without causing nasty side effects. If altering a single gene is the solution, evolution would likely have done it already. Illnesses are different : they are usually caused by an undesirable mutation at some point and the idea is just to revert the damage. Engineering resistance to a specific toxin or disease (like GMO crops) is also a different matter : this is a specific improvement, and it o
Re:Democrats (Score:2)
Already done in humans for COPD. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://lungdiseasenews.com/201... [lungdiseasenews.com]
"Roflumilast works by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme called phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B)"
Maybe someone who's using it can tell us the side effects in humans.
Its also known by its commercial name Daliresp.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
A better known and safer alternative is resveratrol. You can try taking supplements which may or may not work, or just drink the red wine.
Resveratrol is an exceptional PDE-4 inhibitor. One supplement that has been thoroughly tested and found effective is Longevinex.
The best alternative that I have found is the wonder drug called fuckitol. It is a stress reduction serum that dramatically lowers the levels of cortisol in your body.
The Rats (and mice) of NIMH... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone else get the feeling that life is imitating art here? Who would have thought that The Secret of NIMH [wikipedia.org] was prophetic....
I think most mice have switched to Lithium Ion now.
Could this also relate to human intelligence? (Score:2)
Narf (Score:1)
Zort POIT!
When the mice start building Deep Thought... (Score:2)
...then I'll be impressed.
short term versus long term (Score:2)
Re:short term versus long term (Score:4, Funny)
So it works better than alcohol!
worst of both worlds (Score:2)
You can have amazing intellect but shitty memory.
So that cold fusion device you built five minutes ago? Yes, you know, the one you can't even remember building, never mind how to switch it on?
Life's a bitch.
experiments done with "normal" mice but... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You may think Obama isn't very smart, but he's smarter than the average American.
Re: (Score:2)
And he swiped my pic-a-nic basket.