A GOOD memory could have a downside. Smart mice that are genetically
engineered to learn faster and remember better seem more sensitive to chronic
pain, say researchers.
Two years ago, Joe Tsien and his colleagues at Princeton University in New
Jersey engineered mice to make extra copies of the brain’s NMDA receptors, which
activate neurons, helping to recall memories. Tsien’s mice were better at
learning to avoid mild electric shocks
(New Scientist, 4 September 1999, p 15).
But now Min Zhuo and his colleagues from the Washington University School of
Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, report that such mice…
