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Wed 18 Aug, 2004 08:07 pm
I was once talking to a researcher about one of his projects involving a 'knockout mouse'. A knockout mouse is one in which a specific gene has been removed in order to better understand the function of that gene. He told me that they had been looking at the gene from one 'angle', so to speak, but later found that the same gene (if not functioning properly) in humans is responsible for a form of blindness. So they checked their mice, and sure enough, they were blind.
My question was this: after so much work with the mice they never realized they were blind just from handling them? I know mice depend a lot on their sense of smell, so perhaps it wasn't that easy to tell. Or should it have been?
Well, if they kept them in cages all the time then they probably wouldn't have had a chance to see them do anything that would really spell it out. Probably just thought they were stupid.
I'm assuming these people used albino or PEW mice. I'm not sure about mice (I've never had an albino mouse, and I only have one mouse now) but rats with pink eyes use the 'pidgeon' method, where they 'bob' their heads from side to side to get a better perspective because they have poor eyesight. I personally think that you'd be able to easily tell if an animal was blind or not. I have a blind and deaf doxie, in my house, it's not hard to tell he's blind and deaf as he bumps into the dining room chairs, as they're constantly in new positions. It is harder to tell he's blind when he's on a walk though, because he walks in a straight line on the sidewalk and lets me guide him with gentle leash movements and tugs. I think you'd be able to tell a blind mouse though.
Maybe it would have been easier to tell if there were three of them.
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