Mouse death

Question
A mouse I had been keeping died but I'm curious what went wrong. It was fine but suddenly started rolling around, kicking it's legs and squeaking. After about 10 minutes it stopped breathing, do you know what this could have been?

Answer
Dear James,

There are two possibilities.  The first is that mice usually have a fit as they die. They convulse, often violently.  Thus it's possible that the mouse died from some other cause-- a heart attack, perhaps.  However, ten minutes is a long time. So the other possibility is that the mouse had something like an epileptic seizure.

I'm really sorry for your loss.

squeaks,

Natasha