At 4:38 PM -0500 8/28/01, Jeffrey Nagelbush wrote:
>Another interesting (at least to me) article.
>
>Cage life may drive lab animals so insane
> that experiments are invalid
>
> James Meek
> Guardian
>
> Tuesday August 28, 2001
>
> It is a scientist's reward: after feeding a laboratory mouse an
> untried medicine, or turning it into a cocaine addict, or flashing
> lights at it, the rodent appears to get smarter, or slower, or more
> discerning. Do it a hundred times, and you have got a research
> paper - or a billion-pound drug.
>
> But what if the mouse, in the bleak, confined circumstances of
> its laboratory cage, has gone quietly insane before the
> experiment even begins?
>
> That is the possibility being raised by US scientists who say
> they have found evidence that the sheer boredom of life as a
> captive lab animal may be enough to incur brain damage.
>
> If true
^^
Another hypothesis that's been around for years.
What is the natural environment of an animal bred for the lab?
Of people who have lived in "unnatural" environments for millenia?
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
