A few months ago, we posted about how we could use animals for research. Today we are looking at the ethics surrounding the decision to conduct research using nonhuman animals. Most students can reel off the ethics involved in conducting research on humans (informed consent, lack of harm, right to withdraw, privacy, etc.) but when we talk about the ethics … Read More
We’re all just animals, aren’t we?
The question of when to use non-human animal studies as evidence for human behaviour is a tricky one. Because it remains unethical to lesion the brain of a live human to look for a correlation between brain damage and behaviour (at the moment!), animal studies are used in large numbers at the biological approach. However, many people are becoming more … Read More
Overstimulation of newborn mice leads to deficits in cognition and attention
This research could be a useful counter argument to the classic Rosenzweig, Bennett and Diamond study (1972) into enriched environment and neuroplasticity. It suggests disco lights are out, but toys are in! This study was based on earlier findings by Christakis et al. (2004) that young children’s excessive television watching led to later attention problems. Christakis, Ramirez and Ramirez (2012) subjected … Read More