Triggering a Mouse's Happy Memories With Lasers Gives It the Will To Struggle On

the_newsbeagle writes: With optogenetics, scientists can tag neurons with light-responsive proteins, and then trigger those neurons to "turn on" with the pulse of a light. In the latest application, MIT researchers used light to turn on certain neurons in male mice's hippocampi that were associated with a happy memory (coming into contact with female mice!), and then tested whether that artificially activated memory changed the mice's reactions to a stressful situation (being hung by their tails). Mice who got jolted with the happy memory struggled to get free for longer than the control mice. This tail-suspension test was developed to screen potential antidepressant drugs: If a rodent struggles longer before giving up, it's considered less depressed.

Comments

Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this kind of thing needs to be done. Still I find it repulsive from an emotional point of view.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

When the time comes you should definitely opt out of any medical technique or drug that was tested on mice (hint: all of them). Don't want to be a hypocrite!

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember, once they have stopped struggling, the mice who struggled longer are just as depressed as the mice who struggled less.

Re:Repulsive

[JMJimmy]

I know this kind of thing needs to be done. Still I find it repulsive from an emotional point of view.

Does it? Does it really?

I get research needing to test on animals but a test like this is not necessary. You can prove the same results using less harmful methods.

Re:Repulsive

[antiperimetaparalogo]

I know this kind of thing needs to be done. Still I find it repulsive from an emotional point of view.

I agree that this kind of things (i.e., experiments on animals) needs to be done, and, even as a hypocrite who has tortured animals just for "fun" as a kid, i understand how you feel - my hope is that we can use this emotional repulsiveness to better the lives of any animals we use as livestock (which are far more than animals we use for experiments and also tortured by our current livestock raising methods).

Re:Repulsive

[antiperimetaparalogo]

I know this kind of thing needs to be done. Still I find it repulsive from an emotional point of view.

Does it? Does it really?

I get research needing to test on animals but a test like this is not necessary. You can prove the same results using less harmful methods.

I believe that the method used may be one of the less or even the least harmful - keep in mind that for *this* experiment... some harmful method *must* be used... i think!

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

Err... what would be less harmful than inconveniencing a mouse for six minutes?

Re:Repulsive

[pushing-robot]

...and the obligatory Onion

Re:Repulsive

[LessThanObvious]

I'm not sure the results are even that valid. How do you tell the difference between a less depressed mouse struggling and a mouse driven into a rage by having it's brain laser baked whilst being dangled by the tail? I guess we'll just have to stimulate a sad memory and see if those mice just hang there without the will to live.

Re:Repulsive

[wonkey_monkey]

inconveniencing a mouse

Now there's a euphemism looking for a meaning.

Re:Repulsive

[Sowelu]

"Mice with happy memories struggled longer when the light was on, those with neutral memories showed no change, and those with negative memories struggled less." -tfa

Re:Repulsive

[JMJimmy]

Err... what would be less harmful than inconveniencing a mouse for six minutes?

Let me hold you up by an appendage for 6 minutes and see how well you fare.

The point is that you can do the experiment without having mice involved at all. Subject someone to something they find funny or enjoy to make them happy, test how long they will do an unpleasant/menial task after the fact. Repeat the test with making them angry/upset/depressed/whatever and compare... just as valid as the mouse test but without electro-stimulation or hanging them upsidedown.

Re:Repulsive

[pla]

keep in mind that for *this* experiment... some harmful method *must* be used... i think!

Why? "Frustration" (or even plain ol' fatigue) has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with "depression" (on the short term).

The entire premise of this experiment centers on the idea that giving up in a hopeless situation somehow magically forms a biochemical parallel to a long-term human disease state. Sorry, but no, they don't.

I have no problem with animal testing. This, however, amounts to torturing animals just because one particular subset of well-paid sadists can write it off as some debased form of "science".

Re:Repulsive

[MobSwatter]

Now that we have that cleared up, perhaps we can test it on soldiers that return from war before they commit suicide due to being asked to commit war crimes? This... This might make Trump happy enough to not build a prison wall around the country to make himself feel more where he belongs while he is 'fixing' everything like Hitler promised for Germany. I bet we could implant and recall memories in a five year old child of pulling wings off a fly and it would sell better than cartoon advertising in holiday season.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no problem with animal testing. This, however, amounts to torturing animals just because one particular subset of well-paid sadists can write it off as some debased form of "science".

Oh fucking please.

Not only does picking up a mouse by the tail not hurt it one bit, but is the second most commonly suggested way to go about picking up a mouse, with the first most common being to let it walk into your hand by itself.

The article even goes into details on how the mice are handled, which is far and above what even vets instruct mice owners to do.

Or put another way, yes it would be preferable for your toddler to walk away from the camp fire on his own, but if the toddler insists on touching the pretty fire, you pick the kid up under the arms with both hands and fucking MOVE them away from the fire.

It's not fucking torture

Re:Repulsive

[sleepypsycho]

In fact there are relationships, and how these reflect to human models of both behavior and biologically have been studied
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
The long history of these techniques helps the other show the validity of their work because it is commonly known how reliable and variable the behavior.

The experiment is interesting in itself, it show that stimulation of the cells associated with a memory as it forms will affect their behavior. Additionally the effect supports the hypothesis on how the stimulation would affect the behavior.

Of course there are still ethical and moral consideration.. There may in fact be other better ways to investigate the same phenomina or it may be more ethical not to do the research at. However it is not fanciful sadism. It is a serious attempt to extend the understand of optigenetics, memory, behavior and depression

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

Err... what would be less harmful than inconveniencing a mouse for six minutes?

Let me hold you up by an appendage for 6 minutes and see how well you fare.

The point is that you can do the experiment without having mice involved at all. Subject someone to something they find funny or enjoy to make them happy, test how long they will do an unpleasant/menial task after the fact. Repeat the test with making them angry/upset/depressed/whatever and compare... just as valid as the mouse test but without electro-stimulation or hanging them upsidedown.

If you're volunteering to have the proteins injected into your brain to enable the light sensitive triggering (which probably stay there permanently) and then have your skull cracked open to have the light emitters inserted to initiate the effect, please, by all means, feel free to go ahead. The rest of us will just shake our heads and laugh at you.

Re:Repulsive

[aaronb1138]

I hear Bernadette's shrill voice muttering about the one on amphetamines that ripped off it's own tail to get free before disemboweling the others.

Re: Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

The nazis had large camps full of volunteers, and didn't harm any animals. Modern governments are just so lame at convincing people to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Lets hope the IS and the NSA get more power so that poor mice arent tortured by these barbarian "scientists'.

Re:Repulsive

[pla]

Nice try, but I've kept both mice and rats as pets.

"Picking them up against their will" does not equate to hanging them by their tails until they go limp from exhaustion.

They'll get over picking them up by the tail. That doesn't mean you dangle the toddler by its arms until it passes out from the effort.

Re:Repulsive

[antiperimetaparalogo]

You have mixed up you objections with at least 2 legit issues: the method used to cause "frustration" to the mouse (which i thought to be "one of the less or even the least harmful" and one anonymous already replied confirming that) and if this experiment can reveal anything about "depression" (for which the fellow Slashdoter "sleepypsycho" answers very well) - i will give an answer about this 'torturing animals just because one particular subset of well-paid sadists can write it off as some debased form of "science"' you write: if you want to sadisticaly torture animals (i.e., just for the "fun"), you do it in the privacy of your home or somewhere else, but not in the lab - just before i wrote the comment you replied to, i wrote some other where i confess that i used to torture animals as a kid... in the lab, any torture is for science, not for "fun".

Re: Repulsive

[Type44Q]

There's a special place in hell for pharma-industry researchers; apparently it resembles the inside of Richard Gere's ass. :p

Re: Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they know what memories are good and bad to a mouse? They showed them memories of an encounter with a female. Maybe the mouse struggled longer cause he really wanted to get away from that crazy, ugly, stalker bitch they just reminded him of. Not all encounters with females are pleasant. In fact I'd say 99% are decidedly unpleasant.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that they force the mice to remember their encounters with female mice? Indeed terrible - would not work for me I guess and not because I am gay. All sexual encounters with females ended up bad because of abuse that inherent to relationships between humans. I guess this must be the same with mice - this treatment is brutal and equals torture.

Re:Repulsive

[serviscope_minor]

You can prove the same results using less harmful methods.

[citation needed]

Pigs or GTFO

Put up or shut up.

They all mean the same thing. You're making a completely unsubstantiated claim. You need to substantiate it for your claim to have credibility.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to hook some of these Scientists up to a few of these devices and see what kind of Data I can collect from their Brains. I bet it would be...fascinating.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

So what is the point of the experiment then? I thought it was to show that a subject who remembers a pleasant memory can perform an unpleasant task for a longer amount of time. You're moving the goalposts and saying the point of the experiment is to demonstrate the feasibility of using light sensitive triggers to initiate pleasant memories. If the former, then you don't need to crack open any skulls. If the latter, you don't need to hang mice by their tails until they die from exhaustion.

Re:Repulsive

[JMJimmy]

Logical thought and reason are all I need. I'm sure some psychologist has done a similar study I just can't be arsed to find it for a jackass like yourself.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

So what is the point of the experiment then? I thought it was to show that a subject who remembers a pleasant memory can perform an unpleasant task for a longer amount of time. You're moving the goalposts and saying the point of the experiment is to demonstrate the feasibility of using light sensitive triggers to initiate pleasant memories. If the former, then you don't need to crack open any skulls. If the latter, you don't need to hang mice by their tails until they die from exhaustion.

Oh gosh, if only there were a summary that explained all of that and an article to go with it that had the details...

Starting an argument without even understanding what you're arguing about makes you look like a complete imbecile.

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure some psychologist has done a similar study I just can't be arsed to find it for a jackass like yourself.

So essentially what you're saying is that you don't even know of any specific study that backs up your claim- not even an "I remember seeing it but forget/lost the details" excuse!.... but somehow you can be "sure" that this is the case anyway?

And that you're avoiding doing the hard work of even proving that someone has actually carried out stuch a study- let alone actually providing the details- on the basis that the other poster is a "jackass"... because, as far as I can tell, he had the temerity to ask for some sort of proof for your claim?!

Ahem.

Re:Repulsive

[Falos]

So go to your local uni. Humans researching humans all over the place. Is it something burdensome but not harmful? You'll still have undergrads doing it to each other. Is it painful and mildly harmful? STILL have them. It turns out when your "victim" can speak, they're usually going to say "it's a brief electric shock, I'm not such a pussy that I'll let THAT stop your progress".

Then you step up to an actual, tiny chance of injury and people are still lining up, starting with "these Scientists". People will KEEP lining up, to the point we have to put laws in place saying we can't do it anyway, even with volunteers, the exception being directly to ourselves (cue "these Scientists" doing some crazy shit to themselves).

Physical stresses ain't shit anyway, unless it's a process being applied over years. A punch to the face is painful (U R TORTURING PPL) but predictable and easily analyzed in comparison to drinking Chemical X for weeks in a medicinal study. And that's after we're pretty sure X is harmless because it worked fine on rats. Take the rats away and I'll nope to the moon. Everyone will. Anyone know if this cure for Polio2.0 is safe?

Re:Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this kind of thing needs to be done. Still I find it repulsive from an emotional point of view.

It's worse than repulsive. It's junk-science. How do they know that the mice are less depressed? Maybe stimulating these parts of the brain simply induce increased incidences of compulsive behavior, or dull a mouse' sense of futility, where if you do the same thing to a person, when he goes out somewhere, and encounters a door he wants to enter, he starts pulling on it, and it doesn't open, but he just keeps pulling, when any rational person would have given up and tried PUSHING on it, or perhaps KNOCKING on it, or even looking around for another door, or depending on urgency, a rock, a set of lock-picks, etc.

When you start off with a base assumption that could SO easily be wrong, it compromises the validity of the rest of your research. Now imagine you're a woman at a bar, and that guy who spent hours pulling on a door handle that would have opened if he'd just pushed on it, starts hitting on you. You tell him you're married. He just keeps doing it. You tell him you have herpegonosyphilaids, and 3 children. He keeps on doing it. You tell him you're married to ANOTHER LESBIAN, hoping he'll finally take the hint. He keeps on doing it. You tell him you're a PRE-OP transexual, and he STILL keeps doing it. You tell him you wouldn't go anywhere with him if he were the very last person on earth, and beg him to please leave you alone. He keeps doing it. So, you Taze him.

He quivers helplessly for a few seconds, seeming postictal. Then he recovers, and immediately goes back to trying to hit on you, perhaps even rubbing his crotch against your thigh.

Would your conclusion be that he's NOT DEPRESSED? Is THAT what you get out of this research? Jesus!

This is about as bad as the biologist and the frog trained to hop on command.

His theory went like this: a frog, lacking visible external auditory organs, must hear with its legs. So he trains a frog to hop on command, and proceeds to experiment. He anesthetizes the frog, and cuts off one its legs, and when the now-three-legged frog wakes up, the biologist says, "hop". The frog hops as bade, so the biologist records in his notes:

"Cut off one frog's leg. Commanded frog to hop. Result: frog hops."

He anesthetizes the frog again, and cuts off another of its legs. When the now-TWO-legged frog wakes up, the biologist says, "hop". The frog hops as bade, if a bit more to the left than before, and the biologist records faithfully in his notes:

"Cut off one frog's leg. Commanded frog to hop. Result: frog hops."

He anesthetizes the frog AGAIN, and cuts off another of its legs. When the now-ONE-legged frog wakes up, the biologist says, "hop". The frog hops as bade, this time feebly, and much more to the left than before. The biologist records faithfully in his notes:

"Cut off one frog's leg. Commanded frog to hop. Result: frog hops."

He anesthetizes the frog one more time, and cuts off the LAST of its legs. When the now-legless frog wakes up, the biologist says, "hop". The frog sits still. "Hop!" the biologist insists. The frog doesn't budge. The biologist records faithfully in his notes:

"Cut off one frog's leg. Commanded frog to hop. Result: FROG HAS GONE DEAF."

"Conclusion: after multiple experiments, I have concluded that frogs DO hear with their legs."

He publishes his findings, and is promptly laughed out of town, much as I think these laser-mouse "researchers" will be. Man, these guys aren't wasting grant money that could be used to do REAL science on this bullshit, are they?

Re: Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on. That's why I stick toddlers on broom handles and parade them around like screaming human lollipops. Or rather I did before they threw me in this dark fetid cell with only the spiders to keep me company.

Re: Repulsive

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what the fuck you are doing that results in 99% of your encounters with women to be unpleasant.

Re:Repulsive

[allo]

Don't you think, the scientists know very well, what they need to test for depression/frustration, etc.? Neuroscience is their job, not yours. They will know their basics.

Mice!

[roc97007]

Mice with friggin lasers on... their... heads...

Oh, never mind.

(I wanted sharks....)

Re:Mice!

[Krishnoid]

And girls on their minds.

Or maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

The mice struggle more because they're being shocked? ;)

This explains so much

[Anonymous Coward]

Assumption of "meeting female mice" equals "happiness" for male mice. They don't have any relationship problems, ever? How?

Hanging drugged-out mice by the tail to figure out if the drugs are any good as antidepressants.

Hey, maybe there's some solid science in there. Possibly. But, you know.

Fuck Dice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just fuck 'em.

Suspension test

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the "researchers" would enjoy being strung up, hanging by their feet, while someone experimented on them.

"If a rodent struggles longer before giving up, it's considered less depressed." - or maybe it's just more physically fit and more athletic; ever think of that?

Re: Suspension test

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they probably tested only with 2 mice. These scientists probably have no idea how to get reliable results.

Tail

[penguinoid]

These mice wanted to get some tail, so they struggled more to free their tail.

Stummies?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a rodent struggles longer before giving up, it's considered less depressed.

Metrics like that is how GLeeMONEX was invented.

"Those involved in the early stages of GLeeMONEX- the scientists, marketing arm and several early users - are followed, right up through the troubling coma-like side effect of being stuck in their happiest memory."

the hrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

> If a rodent struggles longer before giving up, it's considered less depressed.

yfw you realise the world's supply of anti-depressant drugs is based on this retarded test.

unhappy memory?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is the converse true? Does trigger unhappy memory cause the mouse to want to... well, rollover and die?

This sounds like a bad plot

[pushing-robot]

This tail-suspension test was developed to screen potential antidepressant drugs: If a rodent struggles longer before giving up, it's considered less depressed.

Yes. This will definitely end in zombies.

less depressed or more insane?

[slew]

The tail suspension test (TST) was developed as a rodent screening test for potential (human) antidepressant drugs. It is based on the assumption that an animal will actively try to escape an aversive (stressful) stimulus. If escape is impossible, the animal will eventually stop trying ("give up"). In the TST a mouse is suspended by the tail so that its body dangles in the air, facing downward. The test lasts for six or more minutes and may be repeated multiple times. Mice initially struggle to face upward and climb to a solid surface. When the animal stops struggling and hangs immobile it is considered to have “given up”. Longer periods of immobility are characteristic of a depressive-like state. The validity of this test stems from the finding that treatment with an antidepressant drug will decrease the time the animal spends immobile.

I imagine if the drug made the mouse more insane (i.e., struggling more against the impossible). Conversely, I imagine if the drug made the mouse smart enough to know it was impossible, it would appear depressed.

Reminds me of a scene in the Bruce Lee film Enter The Dragon where he realizes he finds himself in a trap and just sits down and waits to make his move.

Re:less depressed or more insane?

[wonkey_monkey]

Maybe the mice who stop struggling have simply reached a Zen-like inner peace.

Re:less depressed or more insane?

[hey!]

Maybe struggling to obtain happiness is inconsistent with inner peace.

Re:less depressed or more insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe struggling to obtain happiness is inconsistent with inner peace.

That is the whole point of Zen-Buddhism.

Re: less depressed or more insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Reminds me of a scene in the Bruce Lee film Enter The Dragon where he realizes he finds himself in a trap and just sits down and waits to make his move."

Come closer lab tech...

Bite! Bite! Bite!

Re:less depressed or more insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

The happiness is empty, temporal grasping and attachment ... happiness is not permanent, or even real. It is an illusion we create.

Happiness, sadness ... all empty.

coming soon to a cubicle near you

[liquid_schwartz]

Lasers to help you struggle on at work. There should be a Dilbert about this.

This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

...a new technique for identifying gay mice has been discovered by optogenetics researchers.

Human trials go awry!

[Chas]

Interviewer: Did it work?
Researcher: Yes. But we had to discontinue it.
Interviewer: Why?
Researcher: Because what we thought was memory stimulation was actually a memory encoding and replay system.
Interviewer: And that makes a difference...why?
Researcher: Because our test subjects were highly disturbed by "memories" of getting their freak on with female mice...
Interviewer: ...eww...
Researcher: Indeed...

More bullshit 'science' by psychopaths...

[Anonymous Coward]

And lapped up by the usual Slashdot psychopaths... who can't feel the suffering of others...

What is that like? Having to pretend to give a shit about all the people around you, when you can't actually FEEL what they feel, and don't care.

So mice have to be tortured in order to make unhappy humans 'happy'. Aaw, the poor little humans, unhappy and too stupid to try being grateful for what they have, and too psychopathic to start caring about the suffering of others. Unhappy people are always selfish. (I don't mean somebody who is unhappy because their mother or father died, etc. I mean selfish, miserable, permanently unhappy people, who want the world to bow down to them and make them happy.)

Re: More bullshit 'science' by psychopaths...

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, it's kind of like living In the movie "Idiocracy." Surrounded by retarded monkeys who for some mind boggling reason think that they matter. It's lonely at the top.

Re: More bullshit 'science' by psychopaths...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was bullied hard at school. E.g. they caused me permanent dental damage, but obviously the mental stuff was worse. Teachers were not much better and my father was a drunk. I was so depressed that I wanted to die. I didn't take any drugs nor did I tell anyone. My life was living hell for about 12 years.

Weaponize

[handy_vandal]

Weaponize it: soldiers who serve for home and memory.

"(being hung by their tails)"

[PopeRatzo]

God damn. We better hope mice never develop the ability to use tools or we're all going to have our throats cut in our sleep.

Re: "(being hung by their tails)"

[jez9999]

IKR? Looks like you can do any fucked up test you want on mice. We wouldn't allow this with cats or monkeys or the precious homo sapiens.

Triggering

[XxtraLarGe]

Somebody should try this on Melody Hensley.

Eerily familiar

[argStyopa]

"If a rodent struggles longer before giving up, it's considered less depressed."

Pretty sure that was my last boss's management style as well.

"Jim, how's your team doing?"
"Great!"

Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

[gijoel]

I think so, Brain. But where are we going to get prosethetic tails at this time of the night?

Braincandy!

[MenThal]

No tea for me, thanks.