The squeak of a mouse tells most people to buy a mousetrap, but it tells some researchers a lot more. According to an April 1 study in PLoS ONE, mouse noises indicate certain states of mind, and monitoring their sounds can help scientists learn more about emotion, reward seeking and communication.
In addition to audible squeaks, mice produce ultrasonic noises—squeaks so high that humans cannot hear them. Males sing a complex song during sex and squeak when they are tickled, females chirp when around other females, and mouse pups squeak when their mothers abandon them. These vocalizations transform as the situation changes, too—male mice squeak more frequently as they get closer to ejaculation, and female mice make a ruckus when their female playmates have chocolate on their breath. Scientists at the University of Toronto, Northwestern University and the National Institutes of Health speculated that these noises and their intensities were linked to the activation of dopamine, a brain chemical involved in pleasure and reward seeking. They bred mice to lack certain aspects of dopamine function and monitored the resulting din. Sure enough, the dopamine-deprived mice were quieter on all counts, suggesting that mouse squeaks relate both to the experience of pleasure and to the desire for it.
The specially bred mice can teach scientists much about both mouse behavior and the human brain. “Because mouse genes are so similar to many human genes, it gives you a way of studying the genes for complex behaviors,” says John Yeomans, a psychologist at the University of Toronto and the lead researcher of the study. Labs are already starting to use mouse noises to study language development, social bonding and diseases that have symptoms related to communication, including schizophrenia and autism.
Editor's Note: This story was originally printed with the title "Song of the Mouse"
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3 Comments
Add CommentWhy not use the brains of child rapists without anesthesia, or other useless animals. Rats are so wonderful as pets. They're happy to see you, ride around on your shoulder, jump up on your lap and cry out with little squeals when upset. Mice are gentle little guys. WHY are OUR tax dollars going to keep the soulless guys alive, hangin out reading books, but we torture animals with useless experiments because they are "similar" to humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProbably because our justice system is imperfect, oh and torture is illegal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Wind Dancer. Probably, the reason that these experimenters chose to use mice rather than your suggested subject of a child rapist, is that child rapists don't produce ultrasonic vocalizations. Let's entertain the ludicrous idea for a second that humans produced ultrasonic vocalizations at all, which, by definition, would not be possible. Even then, the brain of a child rapist may be qualitatively different than that of a control subject. People use mice as research subjects so that when your grandmother gets Alzheimers or your husband gets colorectal cancer that health professionals can provide effective treatments rather than killing them by administering a treatment that has not been tested. Computer algorithms and in vitro electrophysiological recordings are not nearly advanced enough to say anything conclusive about treating the ever growing amount of diseases and disorders. My educated guess is, that since you keep talking about rats, that you didn't even read the article. Take a class, pick up a peer reviewed scientific journal, but please stop spouting gibberish in all caps in a public forum about subjects you obviously know nothing about.
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