by NotPhil

It is a scientist's reward: after feeding a laboratory mouse an untried medicine, or turning it into a cocaine addict, or flashing lights at it, the rodent appears to get smarter, or slower, or more discerning. Do it a hundred times, and you have got a research paper - or a billion-pound drug. But what if the mouse, in the bleak, confined circumstances of its laboratory cage, has gone quietly insane before the experiment even begins?