Neuroscience: News and Discussions.
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Animal Testing (self.neuroscience)
submitted 12y ago by xthepond
I'm a pre-medical student studying in a night-time post-bacc program and looking to get involved full-time in neuroscience research during the day. I've been told that most neuro research involves animal testing, but I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I'm not sure I can overcome my ethical reservations to get involved with it. Are there alternatives to animal testing, or areas with non-invasive/distressing animal testing? Are there techniques I should be looking to learn more about? How can I get involved?
NedDasty 1 points
Neuroscience PhD student here.
The vast majority of neuroscience research involves mice; they multiply quickly, there are many known strains, and it's easy to get the genotype you want. If you have qualms about using mice, then I'd suggest what others are saying, and get involved more with in-vivo imaging studies using technologies like DTI, MRI, fMRI, PET, etc.
I work with monkeys and cats, and I love animals, so I have these qualms as well. However, I've learned to overcome them by telling myself that we do everything we can to make the animal comfortable, and the amount of discomfort they feel pales in comparison to slaughterhouses. If you have issues with animal treatment, there are far better places to take up your qualms with than testing in science, which, while being much milder treatment towards animals than, say, slaughterhouses, is also actively working to improve the quality of life for the billions of future humans who will benefit.
The vast majority of neuroscience research involves mice; they multiply quickly, there are many known strains, and it's easy to get the genotype you want. If you have qualms about using mice, then I'd suggest what others are saying, and get involved more with in-vivo imaging studies using technologies like DTI, MRI, fMRI, PET, etc.
I work with monkeys and cats, and I love animals, so I have these qualms as well. However, I've learned to overcome them by telling myself that we do everything we can to make the animal comfortable, and the amount of discomfort they feel pales in comparison to slaughterhouses. If you have issues with animal treatment, there are far better places to take up your qualms with than testing in science, which, while being much milder treatment towards animals than, say, slaughterhouses, is also actively working to improve the quality of life for the billions of future humans who will benefit.
ipokebrains 1 points
There is definitely a lot of animal research in neuroscience (neuroscience researcher here). My advice is definitely to avoid it if you're already having misgivings.
But it's not all bad news - there are labs working with animal models that can be a little less distressing - zebrafish, xenopus tadpoles aplysia etc. There are also labs working on expression systems like HEK cells, xenopus oocytes, or cell culture so there's no need to work directly with animals at all if you don't want.
This will all depend pretty strongly on the lab, and of course the kinds of questions asked using cell culture are not the same as in true in vivo recordings, but there is still lots of interesting stuff going on. So have a look around the institutes at your university and see what kind of research is happening. Lots of labs use multiple approaches, so it's not usually too difficult to get in on non-animal related projects.
Let me know if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to help.
But it's not all bad news - there are labs working with animal models that can be a little less distressing - zebrafish, xenopus tadpoles aplysia etc. There are also labs working on expression systems like HEK cells, xenopus oocytes, or cell culture so there's no need to work directly with animals at all if you don't want.
This will all depend pretty strongly on the lab, and of course the kinds of questions asked using cell culture are not the same as in true in vivo recordings, but there is still lots of interesting stuff going on. So have a look around the institutes at your university and see what kind of research is happening. Lots of labs use multiple approaches, so it's not usually too difficult to get in on non-animal related projects.
Let me know if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to help.
grilledbaby 1 points
Do you know if the simulations are just as good statistically as doing work on animals? Im going for my BS in Neurosci, so Id find this useful info. I personally think Ill have to just fight to get over my aversion to doing work on animals. Not sure how I feel about this yet since I havent faced it.
ipokebrains 1 points
Simulations are definitely not a replacement for animal research. Generally, they deal with entirely different questions that we can then try and test using experimental approaches. Things such as neural network modelling including learning rules for these networks, modelling of electrical activity in neurons at the single cell level and even right down to the synapse. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on in computational neuroscience, so there's no need to be anywhere near a lab to do neuroscience per say. I'll stress again though that the computational side really attacks the problem from a different angle, and good computational research relies heavily on collaborations with experimental labs. Experimental people provide the data they base the models on, and if possible test any predictions that these models may produce. One is definitely not a substitute for the other.
Laser_Dragon 1 points
Cognitive neuroscience... get involved with some neuroimaging studies.
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