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Mice Brainpower Boosted With Alteration of a Single Gene
Zothecula writes: By altering a single gene to inhibit the activity of an enzyme called phosphodiesterase (PDE4B), researchers have given mice the opportunity to see what an increase in intelligence is like. "They tended to learn faster, remember events longer and solve complex exercises better than ordinary mice. For example, the “brainy mice” showed a better ability than ordinary mice to recognize another mouse that they had been introduced to the day before (abstract). They were also quicker at learning the location of a hidden escape platform in a test called the Morris water maze. However, the PDE4B-inhibited mice also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice." While many people would welcome such a treatment, the scientists say their research could lead to new treatments for those with cognitive disorders and age-related cognitive decline.
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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I would laugh so hard if they develop a drug based on this and the only skills that people gain are the ability to recognize mice better and to be less scared of open spaces and cats. Oh and to find hidden escape ways.
But really I do look forward to what will happen someday if these cognitive enhancement drugs turn out to be safe and make people smarter. I am not talking a limitless sort of thing but what happens if a university course ends up be retuned to be just too difficult for most people unless they are taking these sorts of things? If that hasn't already happened with things like Modafinil.
What about the life span? Is it affected by this gene alteration?
Now the theme to Pinky and the Brain is stuck in my head. Even less conducive to getting work done than reading Slashdot.
And just now my coworker next to me just asked why I whispered "Narf".
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How smart are we talking here?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long -- and they burn so very, very brightly.
There is no sig.
To be competitive, I'm pretty sure certain nations would allow and/or require adjusting human brain genetics to breed a "super race" with superior intelligence, memory, and/or discipline.
I don't know how long a nation that forbids such could compete. If the super-brain nations become a threat, the hold-outs will be forced to tinker also.
Table-ized A.I.
Our new 3D maze-acing, housecat-belling, mousetrap-defying, while getting the cheese anyway, blindfold chessplaying rodent Overlords.
>While many people would welcome such a treatment, the scientists say their research could lead to new treatments for those with access to bloated insurance troughs
Imagine a miracle wonder-drug snake oil that boosted things like risk-analysis, productivity, motivation, organizational ability, etcetcetc, and yes, intelligence. A drug that could shoot any country to a new tier of prosperity, any currency to absolute dominance.
It'd spend ten years tied up in patent courtrooms over who owns the formula. It'd spend the next ten available exclusively to hospitals and the DOD.
Was the lab NIMH by any chance?
Come to life. This is the first thing that went through my head besides Wrath of Khan eugenics type applications.
However, the PDE4B-inhibited mice also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice.
Perhaps being smarter enabled them to process the "fearful event", determine the cause of the fear, the amount of actual hazard and any risk mitigation actions they could take, and thus not be as "afeard" the next time that event happened?
That's what humans do. They get scared by something, realize that the fright was temporary and not based on an actual threat, and desensitize.
And my fist thought was "Flowers For Algernon", too.
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the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Package it in a retrovirus and pass it around. And maybe we can use it to make an STD that will make people smarter. Stop being so damn conservative that you only use it on people with cognitive problems if society as a whole could benefit from fewer stupid people.
You may think Obama isn't very smart, but he's smarter than the average American.
http://lungdiseasenews.com/201...
"Roflumilast works by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme called phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B)"
Maybe someone who's using it can tell us the side effects in humans.
Its also known by its commercial name Daliresp.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Anyone else get the feeling that life is imitating art here? Who would have thought that The Secret of NIMH was prophetic.... Soon we shall all bow down to our rodent overlords.
Think about it. We are genetically extremely close to other primates, yet we have evolved a much higher level of intelligence. This type of mutation, which could easily occur during the natural evolutionary process, could be the cause of our differentiation.
Zort POIT!
Can we just recode this gene into peeple now? Maybe they will stop being stupid...
...then I'll be impressed.
Sounds like they boosted short term memory and processing at the expense of long term memory. The tiny mouse brains destroyed the older memories in favor of the new ones at a quicker rate than with normal mice.
I for one welcome our super intelligent rodent overlords.
It's not just the Democrats, all of the rich and powerful keep all the real decision making away from those who are not, and we keep letting them. The window dressing is just different, that's all.
Just because someone starts with different axioms doesn't mean they're not logical.
Maybe, but we're working on it pretty hard, and in the meantime we could always just add it to an existing STD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
of genes? Isn't this a nono?
It's not clear that people start with any consistent set of axioms at all. And inherent logical contradictions run rampant. The brain is not logical. It's inductive. It's designed to come to a decision, any decision, which is usually better than a detailed and disciplined logical analysis when it comes to avoiding becoming a meal.
any currency to absolute dominance.
My dollar bills are smarter than your dollar bills?
We've been inhibiting our phosphodiesterases for ages - the miracle wonder drug is called coffee. No genetic modification required.
And he swiped my pic-a-nic basket.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Inductive logic is a thing.
You can have amazing intellect but shitty memory.
So that cold fusion device you built five minutes ago? Yes, you know, the one you can't even remember building, never mind how to switch it on?
Life's a bitch.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
So that's what they're putting in those energy drinks?
Would love to see the results with Mice that have mental disorder or shows mental disorder.
Usually, the bottleneck associated with bigger brain isn't lifespan, but energy expenditure.
Bigger brain eat up more energy and that must be balanced regarding cost/benefit.
- How much more food would an animal X find with the bigger brain vs. how much more food would the animal need to eat to sustain this brain ?
"bigger brain" mutation don't happen that much in the wild, and usually are being done by labs partly for this reason:
because lab mice are guaranteed to receive suffisient food and not starve.
humans are a bit of an exception in the animal kingdom:
we have co-evolved our brains together with our tool-usage and society and civilisation.
in modern civilisation we have access to much more food (too much if you look at the obesity tendency in the western world).
to the point that the bottleneck isn't the energy anymore.
Thus, contrary to other animals, and thanks to agriculture, crops growing, food preservation techniques, cooking, etc.. human can afford having a brain whose gluttonous baseline energy consumption is around 20% of the whole body.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]