Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young eurocentric rat brains
Thanks for the response Stephen! I was beginning to think I should have added something about eurocentric biases to get some TIPS response ;-) I agree as to the problematic news report about the study, but just was unsure about the relevance to my students in a research methods class. I think now that the clear relevance has to do with how the research process is itself clearly tainted by commercialization and the pressure to glamorize, and make socially relevant, one's efforts. This may be especially so at universities where research findings need to be touted to alumni and donors. Best holiday and new year wishes to TIPSTERS! Gary Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Psychology Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI 48710 989-964-4491 peter...@svsu.edu - Original Message - From: sbl...@ubishops.ca To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2009 8:55:30 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains I said: Read this news report. Then answer a simple question: who were the subjects of this alarming study? - Cannabis Damages Young Brains More Than Originally Thought, Study Finds On 24 Dec 2009 at 13:47, Gerald Peterson wrote: Is the objection to the sweeping generalities in the piece? Is it to the emotionalism in the news notice? snip Is it that a rat model is not appropriate to answer questions about cannabis effects? Is the rat model not at all relevant to human teen brains? It seems that my outrage has been met with puzzlement. I wasn't disputing the importance of animal research, or its relevance for understanding the human brain. I fully support animal research for advancing neuroscience. What I do not support is omitting essential information from a press release and from news article based on that release. The significant information was the word rat. It seems to me there was likely a deliberate attempt to prevent the reader from learning that the study was carried out in rats, and instead to encourage the conclusion that humans were studied. This was done by using terms such as adolescent, teens, and even Canadian teenagers, all of which (unless some rats have taken to wearing baggy pants, dissing their parents, and listening to hip-hop) invariably makes us think of not-fully-grown humans. I never heard a rat called a teenager before this study, Canadian or not. Why they did it is obvious. Studies demonstrating the dangers of cannabis for teenagers are sexy; such studies for rats, not so much. If you want publicity, you go with what is sexy, and hide what can impair it. It's also wrong. Rat studies are important. But it's a truism that rats are not people, and we cannot simply assert their interchangeability, at least not without further evidence. At a minimum, I would have expected responsible researchers to say something like this, While this study was carried out in rats, future research may lead to the discovery of similar brain changes in teenagers. But if they did that, everyone, including journalists, would say ho-hum. Because we've had more than a few generations of dire warnings about the toxic and brain-damaging properties of pot, none of which have been supported by credible evidence. One more rat study wouldn't do it for most people. Moreover, if these researchers were so determined to show that cannabis is harmful to humans, why weren't they studying humans in the first place? Yes, we have to use rats to study changes in neurochemicals in the brain, because teenagers won't lend us their brains for the purpose. But the neurochemical changes--- depression hypothesis is in trouble, and jumping from neurochemical changes in the rat brain to human depression is a leap as great as the best of Evel Knievel's. Note that the behavioural measures in this study were such things as forced swim and sucrose preference for depression, and novelty-suppressed feeding test for anxiety. When was the last time we diagnosed depression and anxiety in teenagers with those kind of tests? OK, rant ends. I repeat the offending news report below so you can compare it with the above. As you read it, remember, they're really talking about rats for their findings. Stephen ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2009) - Canadian teenagers are among the largest consumers of cannabis worldwide. The damaging effects of this illicit drug on young brains are worse than originally thought, according to new research by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a psychiatric researcher from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The new study, published in Neurobiology of Disease, suggests that daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause depression and anxiety, and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain. We wanted to know what happens
RE: [tips] Cannabis damages young eurocentric rat brains
Since I'm the one who mentioned the relevance to research methods courses, I'll put my two cents in. For me, it's a great example of generalizing and speculating way beyond the data (to go from rat behavior and physiology to depression and anxiety in teenagers is a bit of a reach), and from Stephen's description I'd say the media source and the original researchers both have done so. By no means was I trying to imply that such research has no merit. From: Gerald Peterson [peter...@vmail.svsu.edu] Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 11:01 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young eurocentric rat brains Thanks for the response Stephen! I was beginning to think I should have added something about eurocentric biases to get some TIPS response ;-) I agree as to the problematic news report about the study, but just was unsure about the relevance to my students in a research methods class. I think now that the clear relevance has to do with how the research process is itself clearly tainted by commercialization and the pressure to glamorize, and make socially relevant, one's efforts. This may be especially so at universities where research findings need to be touted to alumni and donors. Best holiday and new year wishes to TIPSTERS! Gary Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Psychology Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI 48710 989-964-4491 peter...@svsu.edu - Original Message - From: sbl...@ubishops.ca To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2009 8:55:30 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains I said: Read this news report. Then answer a simple question: who were the subjects of this alarming study? - Cannabis Damages Young Brains More Than Originally Thought, Study Finds On 24 Dec 2009 at 13:47, Gerald Peterson wrote: Is the objection to the sweeping generalities in the piece? Is it to the emotionalism in the news notice? snip Is it that a rat model is not appropriate to answer questions about cannabis effects? Is the rat model not at all relevant to human teen brains? It seems that my outrage has been met with puzzlement. I wasn't disputing the importance of animal research, or its relevance for understanding the human brain. I fully support animal research for advancing neuroscience. What I do not support is omitting essential information from a press release and from news article based on that release. The significant information was the word rat. It seems to me there was likely a deliberate attempt to prevent the reader from learning that the study was carried out in rats, and instead to encourage the conclusion that humans were studied. This was done by using terms such as adolescent, teens, and even Canadian teenagers, all of which (unless some rats have taken to wearing baggy pants, dissing their parents, and listening to hip-hop) invariably makes us think of not-fully-grown humans. I never heard a rat called a teenager before this study, Canadian or not. Why they did it is obvious. Studies demonstrating the dangers of cannabis for teenagers are sexy; such studies for rats, not so much. If you want publicity, you go with what is sexy, and hide what can impair it. It's also wrong. Rat studies are important. But it's a truism that rats are not people, and we cannot simply assert their interchangeability, at least not without further evidence. At a minimum, I would have expected responsible researchers to say something like this, While this study was carried out in rats, future research may lead to the discovery of similar brain changes in teenagers. But if they did that, everyone, including journalists, would say ho-hum. Because we've had more than a few generations of dire warnings about the toxic and brain-damaging properties of pot, none of which have been supported by credible evidence. One more rat study wouldn't do it for most people. Moreover, if these researchers were so determined to show that cannabis is harmful to humans, why weren't they studying humans in the first place? Yes, we have to use rats to study changes in neurochemicals in the brain, because teenagers won't lend us their brains for the purpose. But the neurochemical changes--- depression hypothesis is in trouble, and jumping from neurochemical changes in the rat brain to human depression is a leap as great as the best of Evel Knievel's. Note that the behavioural measures in this study were such things as forced swim and sucrose preference for depression, and novelty-suppressed feeding test for anxiety. When was the last time we diagnosed depression and anxiety in teenagers with those kind of tests? OK, rant ends. I repeat the offending news report below so you can compare it with the above. As you read
