steroid psych tests on animal ...hahahhah
animal pyschological expermients are by far the most invalid of all animal experimentation and it would be foolish to extrapolate any of the findings to human beings.
Laboratory animals are already pyschological damaged by living outside of their natural habitats, outside of their normal social structures and denied instinctual behavioral expression. On top of that they are cramped inside small cages in a laboratory, undergoing daily experiments most of their lives.
There is no validity in any experiment that trys to determine the pyschological states of these animals. It is bogus science.
Most pyschologists/pyschiatrists condemn any kind of pyschological tests on animals.
Laboratory housing conditions have significant physiological and psychological effects on rodents, raising both scientific and humane concerns. Published studies of rats, mice and other rodents were reviewed to document behavioural and psychological problems attributable to predominant laboratory housing conditions. Studies indicate that rats and mice value opportunities to take cover, build nests, explore, gain social contact, and exercise some control over their social milieu, and that the inability to satisfy these needs is physically and psychologically detrimental, leading to impaired brain development and behavioural anomalies (e.g. stereotypies). To the extent that space is a means to gain access to such resources, spatial confinement likely exacerbates these deficits. Adding environ- mental ‘enrichments’ to small cages reduces but does not eliminate these problems, and I argue that substantial changes in housing and husbandry conditions would be needed to further reduce them.
J P Balcombe, Ph.D.
The human cortex has 10 times the surface area of that of a monkey.5
The V 1 area (one of the predominant visual areas in the brain) makes up 10 percent of the total cortex in monkeys and only 3 percent of the total cortex in humans.6
Similar visual areas perform very different functions in humans and monkeys.7, 8
The number of synapses—or connections—a human neuron makes is between 7,000 and 10,000. In the rhesus monkey, that number is between 2,000 and 6,000.4
The expression of at least 91 genes involved in a variety of neural mechanisms differ between monkeys and humans.9
Humans have visual processing areas that do not exist in monkeys.10
As one primate researcher stated, “the human brain …is more than simply a large monkey or ape brain.”11 Undoubtedly, similarities exist in primate and human neurophysiology. However, given the advances in medicine today, the differences between species is far more important than the similarities. Technology has given researchers the ability to examine the nuances of physiological mechanisms in order to specifically target an intervention, such as a drug to boost or inhibit a specific cellular process. For this, we need the most accurate possible information about the neurological system of humans – not monkeys.
Researchers can study human neurology in an ethical manner. Many clinical centers use imaging and neurophysiologic tools to map and monitor the human visual and other neurological systems. Centers such as Princeton University, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Minnesota State University use functional MRIs, PET scans, and evoked potentials (which record the brain’s electrical patterns) to collect relevant data on human neural processing and anatomy.12-15 With these and many more wonderful tools available for noninvasive study of the human brain, we can most effectively help patients who suffer from neurological diseases.
Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H
