Mice are rewarded if they correctly pick the color that differs from the other two. Only mice with an extra photoreceptor can distinguish certain colors.
Credit: Gerald Jacobs
New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in biotechnology--and what they mean.
Mice with Enhanced Color Vision
Mice engineered to have a third photoreceptor can distinguish more colors than normal mice
Source: "Emergence of Novel Color Vision in Mice Engineered to Express a Human Cone Photopigment"
Gerald H. Jacobs et al.
Science 315(5819): 1723-1725
Results: Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, used genetic engineering to breed mice that have three kinds of photoreceptors, as humans do, instead of two, as mice normally do. After lengthy training, the mice were able to distinguish colors that normal mice could not.
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