Saturday, June 26, 2010

Use of Animals in Behavioral Research

Believe it or not but animal research has helped to find cures for many different serious diseases and illnesses. Most people are opposed to using animal research for many different reasons but there are many advantages to using animals. The first two advantages for using animals in research is that you can control their genetic makeup and their learning history which would be impossible to do with a human. Another advantage is that you can control the animals experimental environment, one thing you can not do to a human is lock them in a cage and try to keep them from talking to their friends over dinner about the experiments that went on that day. In behavioral research it is important to isolate and manipulate certain things in their environment to see what effect it has on their behavior, which is almost impossible to do with humans. The fourth reason is that there is some research that can not ethically be conducted on humans. Some examples would be classical conditioning which may include high doses of drugs and drug over doses. This would most likely all be impossible to experiment with humans so ask yourself would you rather it be an small rat with a pea sized brain who can reproduce in days or a Human?

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