
“Brainy” mice raise hope of better treatments for cognitive disorders - shenanigoat
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3740/brainy_mice_raise_hope_of_better_treatments_for_cognitive_disorders
======
dluan
At this point, I'll openly admit it. I despise these types of robotic
university press releases, and I fucking despise the patterns of reaction
these types of releases are designed to generate. Where is the questioning
that's fundamental to learning? Where is the interaction with the audience?
Where is the feedback? How the hell am I supposed to wade through this
bullshit?

A sentence like this:

> For example, the “brainy mice” showed a better ability than ordinary mice to
> recognise another mouse that they had been introduced to the day before.

Who is the brainy mouse? Why is he meeting this other mouse? Are they meeting
in a bar? At Dolores Park? Are they fighting? Are they being given a
standardized state administered quiz? Can I see a picture of this Morris maze?

How am I even supposed to unpack this and why would I even care? Science
communication is supposed to be a two-way street, not an unexpectant
ejaculation of "data" for someone else to "comprehend", "digest",
"understand". Show me what's cool about this. Show the process, the failures,
the papertrail, that would be cool. The prestige of the journal, the authors
multitude of titles or affiliations, and some generic stock imagery is not
cool.

And for god sake, at least make the primary source accessible.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_deficit_model#Defi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_deficit_model#Deficit_model_of_science_communication)

[2] I'm intimate to this problem because we've created a robotic press release
generator for Experiment's users. PRs serve a purpose, which is not public
outreach, it's a journalist to journalist protocol.

[3] trying to solve this problem of science communication for funders -
[http://experiment.com/vanek](http://experiment.com/vanek)

~~~
Roodgorf
I have to say, I don't really understand your criticisms as you've presented
them, perhaps I'm missing something.

The "brainy mice" are pretty clearly the ones with the inhibited PDE4B enzyme.
What is it you're mocking here, the use of the buzzwordy phrase?

> at least make the primary source available.

They give the contact information of the researcher and cite the paper,
mentioning that it is available upon request. How does its open availability
fall under the responsibility of the journalist?

~~~
dluan
What bothers me about lazy science communication is that it assumes the reader
is dumb. It assumes that the reader won't desire to know the inefficient
details, or the context, or why the scientist chose one approach over another.
It assumes that I'm incapable of coming to my own conclusions.

Sure, PDE4B-inhibited mice might be less scared than cats, and sure, even if
it's p-hacking I'll let that statement fly. But you know what other ways you
can get mice to be less scared of cats? Brain parasites. Sleep deprivation.
Probably meth or something like that. Or, I'm sure there's other genes that
knock out fear. But they probably also knock out teeth.

The point is that if the goal of the outreach is understanding, it doesn't
provide the tools for the context of that understanding. A link to the paper
is one such tool. Infographics, video interviews, lab protocols, primary
observations, and source code are all valuable tools that help achieve this
goal.

------
tokenadult
This is based on a press release about an article that hasn't even passed peer
review yet, itself about a small-n animal study that hasn't been replicated.
Meanwhile, in peer-reviewed human research, there have been massive genome-
wide association studies (GWASes) in which tens of thousands of human genomes
have been scanned for behavioral traits of interest, including IQ, it has been
found that NO single-gene variant has a strong effect on IQ. That is none.
There simply isn't any common gene variant in humankind that has a large
effect on IQ, and there aren't even any rare variants of large enough effect
to show up in lineage studies or in GWASes or in any other human genetics
investigation on the topic of IQ.

Meanwhile, human investigations of identical twins brought up in separate
households, including a striking recent case in Colombia of two pairs of twins
in which one twin from each pair ended up with the other twin's family to be
brought up,[1] continue to show that identical (monozygotic) twins tend to
resemble each other more than siblings typically do, even if raised apart, but
also can differ from each other in a variety of ways, including in IQ, and
especially in IQ if they are not brought up in the same household. Environment
always matters in human development, for every trait. That's called the Third
Law of Behavior Genetics.[2]

After edit: Here is a link[3] to a description of the Morris Water Maze test,
which this press release says was used in the study trumpeted to the press
here. I'd like to see how the variance in performance of their study mice
compares to mice used in previous studies with the water maze as a criterion
variable of mouse intelligence, as there have been many, many studies like
that.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/magazine/the-mixed-up-
brot...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/magazine/the-mixed-up-brothers-of-
bogota.html)

[2]
[http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/9/5/160.abstract](http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/9/5/160.abstract)

[http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/24/4/304.full](http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/24/4/304.full)

[3]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895266/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895266/)

~~~
narrator
It's not exactly coming out of left field though. PDE4 has been a research
topic of much interest over the past decade. There are many studies and review
articles talking about the large amount of evidence that PDE4 inhibitors,
specifically those that are specific for PDE4B and PDE4D, are excellent
cognitive enhancers and possible treatments for neurodegenerative
diseases.[1][2]

Unfortunately, the PDE4 inhibitor that they used in all the mice studies,
Rolipram, causes vomiting in people in very low doses. Thus, there has been a
lot of research around trying to find one that works just as well without
causing vomiting. These gene tweaking studies just further confirm that these
are good drug targets worth spending the lab time on to develop.

1.[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23883342](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23883342)

2.[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25159075](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25159075)

~~~
danieltillett
Vomiting is one of the more interesting differences between rodents and humans
when it comes to drug studies as rodents can’t vomit.

------
rndn
Article:
[http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/vaop/naam/abs/npp2015240a....](http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/vaop/naam/abs/npp2015240a.html)

~~~
tokenadult
Key point: "This is an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for
publication. NPG are providing this early version of the manuscript as a
service to our customers. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting
and a proof review before it is published in its final form. Please note that
during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the
content, and all legal disclaimers apply."

We shouldn't have submissions like this to Hacker News. Hacker News should be
reserved for articles that have survived peer review (and preferably for
independent journalism that comments on published, peer-reviewed articles
based on interviews with scientists who didn't do the publication), and we
shouldn't be discussing press releases here except to decry them.

[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174)

~~~
dluan
Why should HN only be reserved for "official" publications?

~~~
tokenadult
Thanks for asking. The idea is not mine, but the idea of the founders of the
site, in different words. As Hacker News says in its welcome letter to new
participants, "Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap
links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads."[1] Submitting press
releases rather than peer-reviewed publications or journalism about peer-
reviewed publications violates the first rule directly and generally leads to
comment threads that violate the second rule.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

~~~
dluan
I totally understand the symptoms that lead to a rule like that but ain't that
throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Or conversely, peer-reviewed pubs
can still be muddy bathwater.

~~~
tokenadult
I thought your own top-level comment was quite eloquent about the reasons not
to submit press releases like this to Hacker News. Simply put, we can do
better. When we do better, the whole community benefits from better
discussion.

------
logicallee
Suppose this had been tested on 17 different mammals, all of whom gained
remarkably in intelligence - the equivalent of gaining 70 IQ points (4.6
standard deviations, or the difference between a severely mentally handicapped
adult and a Nobel-winning scientist), and in particular an ape with the
modified gene raised by researchers was able to attain not only an increase in
general intelligence but even was able to learn the speech skills and mental
abilities of a two year old human - breathtaking abilities including limited,
but full conversation, albeit with great difficulty as it did not have actual
language genes but merely learned with intense researcher help.

If there were good reason to believe the gene modification were safe and the
increase in mental abilities would transfer to humans: would you let _your_
next child be modified as an experiment?

~~~
ksenzee
No. I'm not convinced unusually high IQ leads to greater happiness, and what I
care about for my children is happiness. In a literal sense, they're probably
already too smart for their own good.

~~~
grandalf
I think high IQ means a potential for greater happiness, not necessarily
increased chances of achieving baseline happiness.

------
cstavish
_Flowers for Algernon_ \-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon)

------
taf2
This immediately makes me think of "secret of nimh" \- loved this movie when I
was growing up.

------
mdekkers
cognitive disorders? screw that! I WANT MY BRAIN SUPERPOWERS!

------
WalterBright
"Brainwave" by Poul Anderson

------
pmalynin
Getting closer and closer to creating Übermensch with every passing day --
what a great time to be alive!

EDIT: Its also a great time to dump karma. But I really do think that the idea
of creating superhumans, in relation to other humans, is a worthy goal indeed.

~~~
_cpancake
When you're advocating the creation of superhumans using terminology
popularized by the Nazis, you sound pretty Hitlery.

~~~
jkyle
Well, to be fair to the author Übermensch is a term coined by Nietzsche in
Thus Spake Zarathustra.

While it was coopted by the Nazis, the meaning as conveyed by Nazis was very
different from how Nietzsche used it.

The Nazis felt that they _were_ the Übermensch. It wasn't something to achieve
or become. They also thought of it in racial terms, whereas Nietzsche's
formulation couldn't be further from something as shallow as race.

Nietzsche was also a staunch and very vocal critic of National Socialism and
anti-semitism.

To be critical of the OP, though, he does seem to refer to the concept of
Übermensch as meaning "superior man" which is closer to the shallow
interpretation of the Nazis rather than the way that Nietzsche used it. He
clearly intended it as meaning "intensely human" or "over man" where 'over' is
a spacial pun on life's position with reference to death. And presented it as
a contrast to Christians who are obsessed with what happens after we stop
being human in the after life.

Anyway, as an admirer of Nietzsche's writings I felt compelled to add context
as Übermensch is not Nazi terminology and I would hope that's not how he
intended its use.

~~~
_cpancake
That's why I said "popularized by," not "invented by." The Nazis co-opted a
lot of things that weren't theirs, but they're now known for being used by the
Nazis. The swastika is a good example: definitely not invented by the Nazis,
but popularized and pretty much taken over by the Nazis.

------
ylem
One scary part of this article is that the mice also showed far less fear than
normal mice...

~~~
api
Makes me wonder if this could be the cause of the 'higher intelligence'?

~~~
kordless
The assumption would go along the lines of: less time worrying about getting
eaten equals more time to contemplate one's own existence.

------
hcrisp
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. "Their leader, Nicodemus, tells Mrs. Frisby
of the rats' capture by scientists working for a laboratory located at the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the subsequent experiments that
the humans performed on the rats, which increased the rats' intelligence to
the point of being able to read, write, and operate complicated machines, as
well as enhancing their longevity and strength. This increased intelligence
and strength allowed them to escape from the NIMH laboratories and migrate to
their present location."
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Frisby_and_the_Rats_of_NI...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Frisby_and_the_Rats_of_NIMH))

~~~
grandalf
not sure why you were downvoted. I thought the same thing.

