Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

So many bastards, so little time.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

No one could have predicted…

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You are here: Home / Science & Technology / “Gee, Brain, What Do You Want to Do Tonight?”

“Gee, Brain, What Do You Want to Do Tonight?”

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Alasdair Wilkins, at io9, on a genetic tweak that’s suppposed to create “… Super-smart mice, and maybe humans too“:

Switching off a single gene in mice unlocks a part of their brain that is otherwise inactive, boosting learning and memory. The same gene seems to serve a similar purpose in humans, creating hope that humans could enjoy similar benefits.
[…] __
In order to better understand what RGS14 does, Hepler’s research team disabled the RGS14 in a population of mice. They then studied how the CA2 region responded to electrical simulation in these particular mice. They found that the CA2 area was suddenly capable of long-term potentation, a process by which neural connections are strengthened and thus learning and memory creation are increased. In normal cases, the CA2 region doesn’t undergo this process, which means it’s of no use in memory creation but does make it more resistant to strokes and seizures.
__
But in the gene-altered mice, the CA2 region was now home to robust long-term potentation, and the external effects were obvious. The mice were now better at remembering and recognizing objects that had been placed in their cages, and they could more quickly navigate water mazes that depended on remembering visual hints…
[…] __
Still, they have yet to find any negative side-effects to deleting the gene. Besides offering some neural protection in the case of seizure or stroke, CA2 is linked to schizophrenia and certain forms of altered social behavior, although again those links aren’t clear. The researchers are going to look more closely for what these gene-altered mice are losing when RGS14 is switched off, even if these effects have so far eluded detection…

Back when I first started swiping my dad’s Groff Conklin paperback sf anthologies, there was a story about “the next step in human evolution” that scared me into a week’s worth of nightmares. It involved a neurosurgeon describing (in a letter to a colleague, IIRC) a ‘cure’ for ‘the new plague of childhood schizophrenia’ (aka autism) that involved carving away a mutant extra brain lobe in the affected children. Unfortunately, since I was too young to pay attention to minor clues like ‘title’ or ‘author’, I’ve never been able to track that tale down…

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    This isn’t necessarily bad.

    Might mean more work for cats, battling the plague of super-smart mice who are stealing our PIN numbers and rewriting our code!

    Of course, you might have to make the cats smarter…

  5. 5.

    Bob Ewing

    Suggested first test subjects: Most of the Texas Board of Education. Exponentially increasing their brain power should almost make them functioning adults.

  6. 6.

    El Cid

    @debit: I used to think 1984 and Idiocracy were cautionary tales, until I understood that they are instruction manuals for 28% of us.

  7. 7.

    Carol

    I remember something…”Are you a man or a mouse?”. Well genetics is making something close to a combination. Of course with intelligence comes demands-“I want brie cheese dammit!” “I can certainly outwit that simpleminded trap”.

  11. 11.

    El Cid

    @LGRooney: In fact, on her first high school date, the ones gathering around the Satan altar with the blood and stuff were all mouse geneticists.

    People don’t realize that Satan’s most prominent helpers are those researching the DNA of mice.

  13. 13.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Of course you don’t remember the title or author.

    Those parts of your brain were removed. Along with the memory of the alteration, of course.

    Just be glad they didn’t take more, or you’d be working on Team Palin right now.

  17. 17.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    OT: I have a question for lawyer types, especially those that understand how the DOJ works: Is it the job of the DOJ to defend a law – passed by Congress and signed by a president – even if the administration itself does not necessarily support it?

  21. 21.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): Pretty much, yes. Different administrations will prioritize resources differently such that some laws are aggressively enforced and others are not.

    ETA: There also is the concept of prosecutorial discretion which allows a prosecutor to decide that a particular set of circumstances does not warrant action despite a violation of the law.

  25. 25.

    Murc

    @Belafon- Yes. Uncategorically.

    People forget sometimes that it is the JOB of the executive branch to enforce and uphold the laws passed by Congress. That is basically their sole reason for existing. They don’t get to (or at least, they shouldn’t) simply ignore and subvert active law just because they disagree with it; if that were the case, why would we bother with a Congress at all?

    In practical terms, when Omnes said is right; there’s a finite amount of resources out there and different administrations will prioritize things different ways. But ideally speaking they’re supposed to defend even laws they regard as vicious, unjust abominations until such time they can convince the Congress to change them, or until Courts strike them down. The system won’t really work any other way.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JD Rhoades: That’s why I began with “Pretty much, yes.” So there. Then, of course, I tried to add nuance-which was my first mistake. The hyphen is probably my second.

  29. 29.

    Randy P

    @Poopyman: I’m not sure Algernon the mouse really carries the story alone. You probably need a good actor for Charlie, the man who undergoes the surgery.

    Years ago, before I’d ever heard of the novel, I saw the movie adaptation Charlie. Cliff Robertson was in the title role. He was pretty damned good.

  31. 31.

    danimal

    It’s all clear now. Christine O’Donnell was watching Pinky and the Brain and thought it was a documentary.

    Instead, it was a message from the future.

  34. 34.

    Crusty Dem

    My thesis work was on long-term potentiation (aka LTP, in CA1, not CA2), I’ve never seen a study of CA2 (didn’t even know it didn’t have LTP). Still, it’s correlation, not causation; additionally, it’s quite likely there’s a very good evolutionary reason for mice & us not having this type of “intelligence”. Not all smarts is a good idea (see certain types of savants, PTSD, autism/aspergers, etc).

  35. 35.

    Alwhite

    The same thing we do every night Christie . . . TRY TO TAKE OVER THE SENATE!

    They’re Christie and the Brain Brain Brain

  36. 36.

    SRW1

    @WereBear:

    The thing with making cats smarter via the same approach suffers from the problem that, at least so far, gene knock-out only works in mice. There was some progress with rats recently, but cats are probably bound to ‘remain dumb’ for quite a while still. Not to speak of Republicans.

    Advantage mus.

  37. 37.

    LGRooney

    @SRW1: Okay, listen up, hater because you’ve got it all backwards.

    Cats are already so intelligent that any marginal increase in smarts will be practically imperceptible to our non-modified brains. Jeez, didn’t you ever learn to respect your superiors?

  39. 39.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    The same gene seems to serve a similar purpose in humans, creating hope that humans could enjoy similar benefits.

    No, no! Humans’ problem is that most of their brains are filled with curds and whey.

  40. 40.

    Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    Talking of lobotomies and schizophrenia, there’s an ad by Michelle Bachmann on the BJ page.

    I clicked it so Ballon Juice Ltd. would get some of Michelle’s $$.

    What can I do about finding Bachmann kinda hot? She reminds me of an unpredictable French teacher I had.

  41. 41.

    Anoniminous

    @Crusty Dem:

    Not all smarts is a good idea (see certain types of savants, PTSD, autism/aspergers, etc).

    FTW

    Behavioral Genetics exists in, putting it politely, a Cloud of Unknowing when it comes to accurate analysis and prediction of genetic influences on human behavior.

    Also (and I request everybody holds their tempers before exploding into “Anoniminous is an Idiot” rants) … mice aren’t people. There’s a modicum of difference between the evolutionary effects and life-style demands placed on the cognitive ability of mice and homo sap. sap. All mice have to do is remember where their nest is and where the seeds are; humans have to come-up with things like Collateralized Mortgage Obligations and Commodity Future Markets.

    On the whole, the mice may have the better of the deal.

    Looking at the physical structure, a mouse has a frontal cortex – the “thinking” part of the brain (superficially & not really, but it gets the idea across) – ’bout the size of the “Push” part of a pin. We’re talking major dumb, here, and until they vastly increase their forebrain to, say, the size of a lemur they ain’t gonna be a winning entry in the Brains-R-Us category.

  43. 43.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Anoniminous:

    Looking at the physical structure, a mouse has a frontal cortex – the “thinking” part of the brain (superficially & not really, but it gets the idea across) – ‘bout the size of the “Push” part of a pin. We’re talking major dumb, here, and until they vastly increase their forebrain to, say, the size of a lemur they ain’t gonna be a winning entry in the Brains-R-Us category.

    How do I know that you’re actually a human being and not some sort of satanic genius masturbating mouse posting disinformation while a collective of satanic genius masturbating mice slowly take over the world?

  44. 44.

    SRW1

    @LGRooney:

    Hey, hey, hey. I have it on good authority that mice were already running the world before their two-legged lab slaves discovered the gene-doping thing with the RGS knock-out. If you don’t stop with this catty insubordination, I will be forced to report you to Benjy mouse.

  46. 46.

    electricgrendel

    Wait. So they’ve found a gene that will erase conservatism? I for one welcome my younger genetically modified overlords.

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