• Question: How do people test things like anti-depressants on animals? Can you honestly tell whether an animal has cheered up?

    Asked by stephaniej to Darren, Deuan, Duncan, Lori-An, Michelle on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michelle Hudson-Shore

      Michelle Hudson-Shore answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Well they don’t really test to see if the animal cheers up. They do tests that show whether it is less stressed or fearfull. For example the Elevated Plus Maze test with mice see here for an explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevated_plus_maze.

    • Photo: Darren Nesbeth

      Darren Nesbeth answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      That’s one for Lori-An.

      I’ve heard tell of some pretty horrific animal models of neurological diseases. The worst one was cutting out half a living rat’s brain, and flooding the other half with some chemical. The rat should run around in circles. You know you’re drug candidate has worked if the rat runs in a straight line. I think that was a model for Parkinson’s disease. I’m still scratching my head on that one.

    • Photo: Deuan Jones

      Deuan Jones answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Well there are some tests like for example putting a mouse in water and seeing how long it swims for before giving up (then the animal just get’s picked out – it doesn’t drown or anything) – I’m sure there are more based around looking at how long an animal takes to give up in a situation.

    • Photo: Lori-An Etherington

      Lori-An Etherington answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi, this is a good question and although it is not my area of research, I do not do behavioural testing, I will try and answer it for you. In the case of depression there is no single animal model which is exactly like human depression however physiological, hormonal and brain structure alterations can be looked at. The requirements for a valid animal model of depression were proposed by McKinney and Bunny more than 30 years ago: ‘The model should (i) be reasonably similar to the human disorder in its symptoms, (ii) cause behavioral changes that can be monitored objectively, (iii) produce behavioral changes that are reversed by the same treatments that are effective in humans and (iv) should be reproducible between investigators.’
      Hope this helps

Comments