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Ever-Happy Mouse Sheds Light on Depression
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have bred a strain of mouse that's permanently cheerful, in hopes of better understanding and treating depression in people. By breeding mice lacking the TREK-1 gene, which is involved in serotonin transmission, researchers were able create a depression-resistant strain. They say it's the first time depression has been eliminated through genetic alteration of an organism."
If you're incapable of depression, and you're always happy, how do you know if you really are happy?
I wonder how closely depression and negative emotions like outrage, regret, etc are tied together? If I'm unable to be depressed, would I be able to care about what seems to be a series of bad things shaping the world? People I've met on anti-depressants can be pretty non-chalant regarding just about everything, so long as they're on their pills.
If you can see where I'm going with this, you're probably a paranoid conspiracy theorist too.
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
And how exactly do they induce depression in the mice?
Whilst this seems like it could be useful if applied to humans, what kind of effect is it going to have at times that it might be appropriate to be depressed (ie. greiving period after a death, etc.)?
Hmm, sounds like we might have some reaver mice on our hands in a few years.
Mice wake up, eat, sh!t and run on their wheel.
Mice DON'T change the world. Mice invent new tools to save back breaking labor.
Mice don't feel taunted by the universe, to figure out it's secrets.
Mice don't get depressed because a loved one is dying of cancer, and work tirelessly seeking, supporting, and funding medical research. (then again I think Mice get the raw end of this particular desire of Man)
I am not a rat in cage.
I am not a tool to be made happy so I can work longer at a job I should hate.
Keep your chemical paradise, I'll take life for all it's worth.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I beleive I am capable of thinking dispairing thoughts if needed, without having to be depressed. But from past experience I have found that repeating thought patterns which carry subtle emotional cues will have more emotional impact over time, which are very difficult to get rid of once they take hold.
If this is the case then it is best to have a change in enviroment and focus on changing your thought patterns.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say, think what you want, just don't dwell on your negative thoughts/emotions, it helped me through my depression.
You don't know many goths, do you? I think you have Goths and Emo-Kiddies confused.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Of course, one could argue with any one model of depression in animals. That is why the article mentions that they tested it in 5 models of animal depression. Even more, they showed increased efficacy of seratonin in their brains (which we know can reduce depression in humans), and in addition showed lower corticosterone levels under duress (a common measure of stress in humans and animals), which is indicative of lack of depression in humans (and a good thing in general).
So, yes, you can argue with any one model, but, precisely because of such arguments, articles (in Nature at least) prepare for them in advance - really, as much as is possible. If someone doesn't agree to results like this, then perhaps he/she just have a problem with the whole model of using animals to test human conditions; but this model has been proven time and again in giving eventual benefit to research on humans.
Of course, this result should be replicated by outside labs before we accept it. But it sounds like good research so far.
To be exact, they have just numbed her (note: in Russian, different animals have genders, and mouse is 'she'. I will never point to animal as 'it', please excuse me) emotions instead of making here genuinely happy. Not-sad mouse is as far, far away from ever-happy as she could be.
He sat down.
... er ... I think I'll just have a green salad,' he muttered.
The waiter approached.
'Would you like to see the menu?' he said,
'or would you like meet the Dish of the Day?'
'Huh?' said Ford.
'Huh?' said Arthur.
'Huh?' said Trillian.
'That's cool,' said Zaphod, 'we'll meet the meat.'
- snip -
A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox's table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips.
'Good evening', it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, 'I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in the parts of my body?'
It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters in to a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them.
Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox.
'Something off the shoulder perhaps?' suggested the animal, 'Braised in a white wine sauce?'
'Er, your shoulder?' said Arthur in a horrified whisper.
'But naturally my shoulder, sir,' mooed the animal contentedly, 'nobody else's is mine to offer.'
Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal's shoulder appreciatively.
'Or the rump is very good,' murmured the animal. 'I've been exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of good meat there.'
It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again.
'Or a casselore of me perhaps?' it added.
'You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?' whispered Trillian to Ford.
'Me?' said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, 'I don't mean anything.'
'That's absolutely horrible,' exclaimed Arthur, 'the most revolting thing I've ever heard.'
'What's the problem Earthman?' said Zaphod, now transfering his attention to the animal's enormous rump.
'I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing there inviting me to,' said Arthur, 'It's heartless.'
'Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten,' said Zaphod.
'That's not the point,' Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. 'Alright,' he said, 'maybe it is the point. I don't care, I'm not going to think about it now. I'll just
'May I urge you to consider my liver?' asked the animal, 'it must be very rich and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself for months.'
'A green salad,' said Arthur emphatically.
'A green salad?' said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur.
'Are you going to tell me,' said Arthur, 'that I shouldn't have green salad?'
'Well,' said the animal, 'I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am.'
It managed a very slight bow.
'Glass of water please,' said Arthur.
'Look,' said Zaphod, 'we want to eat, we don't want to make a meal of the issues. Four rare stakes please, and hurry.
We haven't eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years.'
The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle.
'A very wise coice, sir, if I may say so. Very good,' it said, 'I'll just nip off and shoot myself.'
He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur.
'Don't worry, sir,' he said, 'I'll be very humane.'
It waddled unhurriedly off to the kitchen.
It seems that we are getting one step closer to the Brave New World...
See, the brain (and not only in humans) is nicely tuned to keep needing the next thing to be happy about. Whenever you have some achievement (even small ones, like getting food when you're hungry) the brain gives itself a "yay, I'm happy" chemical signal, but that's followed immediately by releasing the "antidote" to that signal, to get back to the baseline. So you'll need the next achievement for your next moment of joy.
There is considerable truth in what you say. But the neurochemical aspect of this phenomenon is not the whole story. There are cognitive and social elements that are needed to complete the picture.
Much of the story has to do with how poorly we predict the hedonic value of future events. Generally we assign inflated values to resulting future happiness or sadness. Researchers have demonstrated this: we think if we get a particular job, we'll be happy. And we will be, but not as happy for as long as we thought. We think if our child dies we will be sad. And we will be, but usually not in the permanently incapacitating way we thought.
In human society it's also a very important factor in why, for example, consumerism is alive and kicking, and keeping the capitalist economy going well past the point where just the needs are covered
This is true. But I think of this as exploiting a bug in our software: we overestimate the hedonic value of aquiring something; the happiness it brings (as you point out) is short lived. But most insidious are the ways we undermine our own social contacts in order support an aquisitive lifestyle: we take jobs we don't like for people we don't respect. We work long hours to the detriment of our social life, damaging our families or losing touch with our friends.
So my take is that if someone actually produced genetically-engineered humans which are permanently happy, those humans would be even worse
Clearly, happiness seeking is a survival trait. However this does not inevitably lead to insatiable acquisition. That's a function of our massive logic and symbol processing capacity working on faulty data and producing inaccurate results. Putting a naive and immature person into today's consumer culture is like placing an unpatched computer on a hostile network. Forging strong bonds of friendship, cooperation and respect with those around us is also clearly a strong survival trait, and, if researchers are correct, is a stronger producer of happiness than consumption.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There's a great data point that shows that antidepressants don't artificially make you happy.
They don't have any street value. If they made you happy (that's pretty much what "getting high" means) then people would illicitly abuse them.