• Question: Do the mice mind find it mean having their brain messed???

    Asked by Imogen@Flamingo to MarthaNari, Jonny on 13 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Hattie, 459utec24, lily.
    • Photo: Martha Havenith

      Martha Havenith answered on 13 Jun 2015:


      Ha, another good question… well, the mice definitely don’t feel it directly when we are,e.g. switching on a small blue light on top of their brain to activate some neurons. The brain doesn’t feel pain or touch – so for example, humans who need to have brain surgery can stay awake while the surgeon is cutting out a brain cancer, because you can’t feel it.
      However, if we change the brain activity in a way that makes the mice get worse at the task, they can of course get confused. I’m sure it’s a weird feeling – you’ve been really good at a task and suddenly you can’t figure out for the life of you if a stripe is vertical or horizontal. We only do this for a few seconds at a time though, so in between they get to do the task normally. The way they react to frustration really varies from mouse to mouse, but I’d like to think that overall they mostly enjoy – or at least don’t mind – the whole thing. Actually, if they really disliked the task they simply wouldn’t do it, so even if we didn’t care too much about annoying them we would still need to make it worth their while!

Comments