Adult mice with the Cdk5 gene switched off.
The gene controls production of a brain enzyme that has been linked to diseases like Alzheimer's, in which neurons die. Yet when mice are bred to lack the gene completely, the pups die at birth.
Mice engineered so the gene can be turned off in adulthood, however . . .
. . . were far more adept at sensing changes in their environment than their mouse brethren. [...]
”The increase in sensitivity to their surroundings seems to have made them smarter.”
[Dr. James Bibb, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who led the study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience,] said the mice were better at tasks based on associated learning [...]
“It’s the most important kind of learning in the animal kingdom. It’s how we know where our car is and that is our wife or our husband and that’s our kids. It’s how we connect things,” he added.
The smart mice were better at learning to navigate a water maze and remembering that they got a shock when they were in a certain cage.
“It was very clear right off the bat that the loss of Cdk5 made them have a much stronger associative memory,” Bibb said.
“What was really interesting is they not only remembered better, but the next day, if you put them back in those same circumstances, they noticed they were not getting shocked.”
Wait, these aren't by any chance also the mice with human brains, are they?
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