Doogie Mouser
Turning off a gene made mice smarter in the lab.
Dr. James Bibb used genetic engineering techniques to breed mice that could be manipulated to switch off Cdk5, a gene that controls production of a brain enzyme linked to diseases marked by the death of neurons in the brain, such as Alzheimer’s.
“We have shown that we can turn off a gene in an adult animal. That has never been done before.”
Altered mice did better than normal mice in a variety of tests.
“Everything is more meaningful to these mice. The increase in sensitivity to their surroundings seems to have made them smarter.”
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.
Dr. Bibb’s work was inspired by the 1999 discovery of “Doogie” mice, a smarter breed of mice that were named after the TV program Doogie Houser.
Those mice were bred by manipulating NR2B, a gene that also plays a role in associative memory.
“It turns out Cdk5 was controlling the regulation of NR2B.”
“Maybe by finding these new mechanisms we can find new drugs that improve the cognitive performance of people who have deficits.”
Bibb is working on developing drugs that could create the same effect without the need for genetic alteration.
“There are other cases — in post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and depression — where we may want to modulate memory not so much to improve it, but to selectively modify it to remove the negative memories that are causing the problems.”
“If all of your (brain) synapses were magically strengthened all the time, that might be good for the short term, but I’m not sure if it would be good all the time,” he said.