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Ever-Happy Mouse Sheds Light on Depression

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the happy-go-lucky dept.

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."

7 of 452 comments (clear)

  1. Today's Philosphical question... by atomicstrawberry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're incapable of depression, and you're always happy, how do you know if you really are happy?

    1. Re:Today's Philosphical question... by sporkme · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The same question goes for antidepressant drugs. I have spent long hours debating this with a doped up roomate as he gleefully skipped from psychoactive to psychoactive about the benefits and detriments of mommy's little helpers. I know that they got him through some difficult spots (without the psychotic episodes of his adolescence), but they also stifled his writing ability and effictively stopped his songwriting.

      He was successful in college and in work thanks to these drugs, but was he truly happy without poetry and music?

      Maybe Winston Smith can shed some light on this.

      --
      FairTax baby!
    2. Re:Today's Philosphical question... by edunbar93 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He was successful in college and in work thanks to these drugs, but was he truly happy without poetry and music?

      To quote Trent Reznor: "I don't write a lot when I'm happy."

      I have a theory that says that the function of modern art is for the viewer to live vicariously through the artist's insanity. Van Gogh was famous for this. So was Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Alan Ginsberg, Salvador Dali, and Jackson Pollock, to name a few.

      Perhaps the question isn't "can he be happy without his poetry", but "can he make good poetry without his sadness".

      --
      "No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
    3. Re:Today's Philosphical question... by kripkenstein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "If you're incapable of depression, and you're always happy, how do you know if you really are happy?"

      You find that you spend less time planning your suicide than you used to.

    4. Re:Today's Philosphical question... by feepness · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He was successful in college and in work thanks to these drugs, but was he truly happy without poetry and music?

      I'm not a big fan of permanently medicating the mind unless absolutely necessary... but when I had a episode of depression brought on by major illness, I wasn't thinking about poetry and music.

      I was thinking pretty much constantly about killing myself. Not little fantasies "God I should just shoot myself." No... we're talking cold, calm, and consistent thoughts. Very frightening in retrospect and even more frightening that it felt so normal at the time.

      Thank goodness I had family/friends to point me towards medical care. Lexapro changed that like a light switch, and the depression (and anti-depressants) are just a memory. But for some the depression is chronic and the treatment will probably need to be permanent.

      And yes, before that happened I never understood the potential severity and use for anti-depressants either. Anti-depressants aren't just about turning off maudlin thoughts of missing your dead turtle.

    5. Re:Today's Philosphical question... by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i'd rather be incapable of writing than be depressed. and as for not knowing what happiness is without experiencing depression that is a load of horseshit - i knew the difference between happiness and anxiety before i ever got depressed and now all that shit is out of my system and i'm happy again, i can honestly say my earlier understanding of happiness was perfectly accurate.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  2. Re:Makes you not care? by Chandragupta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your sense of "depressed," i.e. not in a good mood , saddened, or discouraged by identifiable events, is confused with clinical depression, which is a horrible, debilitating, illness.

    In situational depression, e.g. death of a loved one, there is a clear exogenous cause of the depression. This is normal, and is usually worked out "solo" or through counseling, sans medication, or in some intractable cases with short-term use of medication. However, chronic clinical depression, dysthymic disorder, and their ilk are pathological. Depression is a disease. Your method works for most healthy people, but a clinically depressed patient is in open-loop mode: logic, reasoning and "working it out," as you say, don't work. It is wonderful that you are healthy and have worked out your own problems on your own sans pills, but the lives of countless people--whose brains are wired differently than you--have been saved or extended by antidepressants.

    Insightful? Believe it or not, there are people who cannot function or would be dead were it not for antidepressants and counseling. Talk to people who have had the actual disease. Empathy will come to you as you grow up and get outside your own myopic view of the universe.

    Chandra