Deleting Certain Gene Makes Mice Smarter

An anonymous reader writes "Deleting a certain gene in mice can make them smarter by unlocking a mysterious region of the brain considered to be relatively inflexible, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found. Mice with a disabled RGS14 gene are able to remember objects they'd explored and learn to navigate mazes better than regular mice, suggesting that RGS14's presence limits some forms of learning and memory."

Comments

Re:Yeah!

[Rik Sweeney]

Yeah, let's make lab mice smarter! What could possibly go wrong?

Not much

Re:Cool, it's like Intel Upgrade Service for a bra

[derGoldstein]

Keep in mind that it relates to the people that take the test. If you opt to take an IQ test (not everyone that takes the test opted to, obviously, but many do), there's a higher chance that you've been exposed to the kind of environment/education that incentives critical thinking, and as teaching methods improve and learning resources increase, these people will continue to do better on these tests. We're not talking about the average intelligence of the human species.

Probably A Hardwired Response

[Greyfox]

It's probably hardwired to run away from cats or something. Unlocked, it might make the mice more curious or cause them to pause to assess the situation rather than just running. A split second could mean the difference between getting eaten and not getting eaten, so the hard-wired runners don't get eaten as much. Mice don't have to be a whole lot smarter to live as mice, but they do have to be pretty good at getting away from cats.