Animal Research

Advantages of animal research

• Ease of conducting research: cheap and easy too store

• Less ethical concerns: no study that causes physical or psychological harms to people is allowed/less strict ethical guidelines for animal research

• Ability to study behavior over a lifespan: shorter lives that people

• Ease of carefully controlling variables: establishes clear casual link between IV and DV

• Genetic similarity between rats and humans: 99% of genes in common

Ethics

• Replace the use of animals with alternate techniques whenever possible

• Reduce the number of animals used in a research study

• Refine the way experiments are carried out to reduce animal suffering and ensure humane conditions

Francis et al

A: how an interaction between genes and the environment influences how rats nurture their offspring

P: within 12 hours of being born, rats were switched from high licking mothers to low licking (licking is a sign of care and love)

F: rats raised by high licking were less stressed and became high licking mothers, even if their biological mother was low licking/high kickers had lost methyl groups around these genes

C: being raised in a nurturing, loving environment causes changes in genetic expression/epigenetic changes are passed onto the next generation

Evaluate Francis et al

• Carefully controlled laboratory experiment: demonstrated a clear casual relationship between being raised by a high vs low licking mother and the stress in adulthood and maternal behavior

• Use of animals: switching humans babies would be highly unethical and shorter lifespan made it easier to study across generations

• Cannot be completely applied to humans

Waran and Tod

A: effects of dog appeasing pheromone of the behavior of dogs in an animal shelter

P: DAP is a synthetic chemical that mimics pheromones released by lactating dogs three days after birth/released in the air to 37 dogs while 17 received no pheromones/unaware grad student observed dogs behavior for one week

F: DAP dogs barked less frequently and showed more interest in strangers who approached their cage/peak decibel level of 80db for DAP dogs compared to 100db for control

C: pheromones send chemical signals to dogs that make them less anxious and more relaxed

Evaluate Waran and Tod

• Well controlled laboratory experiment demonstrated clear casual relationship between DAP or not and dog behavior

• Ethical use as no dogs were harmed

• DAP may be used to help calm down anxious or difficult dogs but unlike to have effects on other animals or humans