In the last four months, there have been two landmark publications describing unique features of the human brain that should – by all rational standards – halt all future brain research on animals in its tracks.
It’s been a bad year for scientists claiming that experiments on mice
brains will produce human cures.
In the last four months, there have been two landmark publications
describing unique features of the human brain that should – by all rational
standards – halt all future brain research on animals in its tracks.
Please request that those responsible for millions of dollars in cruel and
useless mouse experiments heed the results of these studies and stop
experimenting on mice.
Scientists at the University of Washington collaborated with an
international team to compare the cerebellum in three different species:
mouse, primate and human. In humans, the cerebellum contains nearly half of
the brains’ neurons and regulates motor movements, balance, coordination and
speech.
The study published in October in the journal Science, revealed that the human brain contains a unique cell in the cerebellum that doesn’t
exist in mice. The differences are so significant that the
researchers of the study now believe mice studies cannot model human
cerebellar function.
“Our study adds to the growing body of scientific literature that
shows that there are limitations to using mice as models,” said
lead researcher, Dr. Kathleen Millen, and co-author, Dr. Parthiv Haldipur.
“Specifically, we have shown that humans make the part of the brain called the cerebellum, different even from our closest relatives (other primates).” (It turns out that it’s missing in macaque monkeys too.)
A second study published in August by scientists at The Allen Institute
for Brain Science in Seattle turned decades of mouse data on its head. It
showed that previous mouse experiments which focused on cell shape and
location disregarded disparities in gene activity. This impacts the type of
proteins synthesized by brain cells, resulting in a tenfold difference in
the types of neurotransmitters synthesized. This includes key brain
chemicals like serotonin, dopamine and others, which underlie a host of
neurological diseases, and have huge implications for neuropsychiatric
drugs.
It explains why hundreds of drugs that have shown positive results to cure
mice of diseases like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and glioblastoma have
failed to treat a single person. Currently only one out of a hundred
neuropsychiatric drugs that show positive results in animal experiments
succeed in human clinical trials.
“If you want to cure human brain diseases, you have to understand
the uniqueness of the human brain,” concludes Christof Koch, PhD, the chief
scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and study author.
Does this spell the end of mouse brain research?
Hardly.
The same Allen Institute received over $34 million in federal grants
from the National Institutes of Health in 2019 alone (a conservative
estimate) to conduct experiments on the brains of mice.
These kinds of funds invested in mouse brain experiments explains the refusal of scientists to part with their mouse labs. But as taxpayers, and human patients bearing the fallout from ineffective treatments, we need to speak up.
Please send a polite letter to the Allen Institute and the National
Institutes of Health calling for an end to experiments that are tormenting
mice, monkeys and other animals while sucking up funds from valuable human
research.
Thank you for taking action for animals in labs today!
Thank you for everything you do for animals!
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