Mice lacking a certain brain protein learn some tasks better but also forget faster, according to new research from MIT that may explain the phenomenon of autistic savants in humans. The work could also result in future treatments for autism and other brain development disorders

mice genetically engineered to lack a key protein used for building synapses--the junctions through which brain cells communicate--actually learned a spatial memory task faster and better than normal mice

But when tested weeks later, they couldn't remember what they had learned as well as normal mice, and they had trouble remembering contexts that should have provoked fear

The mice in the study had smaller dendritic spines and weaker brain synapses. Their enhanced spatial learning is similar to that of mice engineered to have a mutation in another protein--neuroligin3--that binds directly to Shank1 and is also associated with autism