Many people express confidence in animal tests to advance human medicine,
but if they knew the reality behind these experiments, that confidence would
be shattered.
For example: studying depression. One standard method that scientists have
devised is the Forced-Swim Test. In this misguided attempt, researchers drop
rats and mice into inescapable tanks of water and watch as the terrified
animals struggle to stay afloat for periods of time. Animals that stop
swimming the soonest are considered depressed because they “gave up.”
Click here to send your polite letter to the director of the National Institute of Mental Health and other proponents of the test to request that they stop approving projects that use the forced swim test.
Forced swim tests are no more than simulated drownings. The terrified animals don’t know that the test will end before they drown. They absolutely experience intense fear and panic as they struggle for their lives.
The forced-swim test is frequently used in mental health research. But
recent opposition from animal rights groups has highlighted its extreme
cruelty and gross inapplicability to humans.
In fact, the forced-swim test has received significant criticism from
scientists themselves for lacking merit. Neuroendocrinologist Ron de Kloet
says that many researchers are under pressure to use the tests.
“People get their grants based on this test, they write papers based on the
test, they make careers. It’s a culture which keeps itself alive, even
though most of them will admit that the tests are not showing what they are
supposed to do,” he says.
Dr. Alan Schatzberg, who oversees the department of psychiatry at Stanford
University School of Medicine, affirms that we can’t use animals to study
human depression. He and others point out that antidepressants were
discovered by accident and not through animal tests.
Not only are animal experiments of depression crude and cruel, but there are
many effective ways to study the true human physiology behind depression.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to predict which
patients will respond best to antidepressant treatment. Using high precision
MRI, scientists identified the lateral orbitofrontal cortex as the area of
the brain affected by depression.
Another brain-imaging technique, diffusion tensor imaging demonstrated
that the quality of the white matter in the brain was reduced in people who
experienced depression.
Examining brain tissue from deceased donors, scientist can identify genes
involved in depression and other psychiatric illnesses. Newer technologies
like organoids (mini-brains) will add to these existing studies.
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
Return to 2019 Action Alerts
Read more at Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection
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