Question

Ethics in Animal Research Written Assignment

In this written assignment, you will act as the Animal Care Committee for your university. It is the committee’s responsibility to evaluate and either approve or reject research proposals submitted by faculty members who want to use animals for research or instructional purposes in psychology, biology, or medicine.

For this written assignment, choose two of the four case studies listed below and critically evaluate each one using the questions provided. The proposals describe experiments, including the goals and potential benefits of the research as well as any discomfort or injury that they may cause to the animal subjects. You must either approve the research or deny permission for the experiments. It is not your job to suggest improvements on technical aspects of the projects, such as the experimental design. You should make your decision based on the information given in the proposal.

Case Study Questions (1 Page Per Case):

1-Case Study #

2-Final Decision

3-What were three of your concerns regarding the ethical treatment of the animals involved in your case?

4-Cite and explain each of your three concerns using specific examples from the APA Guidelines for Animal Research (http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx).

5-What ultimately lead you to your decision?

6-What is one remaining question you still have about animal research in psychology?

CASE ONE

Professor King is a psycho-biologist working on the frontiers of a new and exciting research area of neuroscience, brain grafting. Research has shown that neural tissue can be removed from the brains of monkey fetuses and implanted into the brains of monkeys that have suffered brain damage. The neurons seem to make the proper connections and are sometimes effective in improving performance in brain-damaged animals. These experiments offer important animal models for human degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Dr. King wants to transplant tissue from fetal monkey brains into the entorhinal cortex of adult monkeys; this is the area of the human brain that is involved with Alzheimer’s disease. The experiment will use 20 adult rhesus monkeys. First, the monkeys will be subjected to ablation surgery in the entorhinal cortex. This procedure will involve anesthetizing the animals, opening their skulls, and making lesions using a surgical instrument. After they recover, the monkeys will be tested on a learning task to make sure their memory is impaired. Three months later, half of the animals will be given transplant surgery. Tissue taken from the cortex of monkey fetuses will be implanted into the area of the brain damage. Control animals will be subjected to sham surgery, and all animals will be allowed to recover for 2 months. They will then learn a task to test the hypothesis that the animals having brain grafts will show better memory than the control group. Dr. King argues that this research is in the exploratory stages and can only be done using animals. She further states that in the near future about 3 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s disease and that her research could lead to a treatment for the devastating memory loss that Alzheimer’s victims suffer.

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CASE TWO

The Psychology Department is requesting permission from your committee to use 10 rats per semester for demonstration experiments in a physiological psychology course. The students will work in groups of three; each group will be given a rat. The students will first perform surgery on the rats. Each animal will be anesthetized. Following standard surgical procedures, an incision will be made in the scalp and two holes drilled in the animal’s skull. Electrodes will be lowered into the brain to create lesions on each side. The animals will then be allowed to recover. Several weeks later, the effects of destroying this part of the animal’s brain will be tested in a shuttle avoidance task in which the animals will learn when to cross over an electrified grid. The instructor acknowledges that the procedure is a common demonstration and that no new scientific information will be gained from the experiment. He argues, however, that students taking a course in physiological psychology must have the opportunity to engage in small animal surgery and to see firsthand the effects of brain lesions.

Answer 1

Case – 1

Case study- in the case one the researcher want to perform surgical procedure to make research more genuine and useful with the future perspective. The area of research is to improving health benefits to our society.

Subject of case is monkey and surgical procedure will be installed to improve the health of Parkinson and Alzheimer.

Decision- the committee will allow the research over monkey.

Justification- according to APA norms of animals use in psychology, this research is helpful for human and nonhuman both. The research based on rhesus monkey which are IUCN listed threatened animals so we need to take a permission from IUCN.

Concerns regarding the ethical treatment of the animals-

1-     Can we use other animal or animal research to get the same kind of knowledge?

2-     The main concern is regarding the health of animals after the surgery, what is the probability to surviving of animal after surgery.

3-     Do we have proper preparation of mind surgery?

Citation-

1-    Justification of research- APA guidelines (I) para 1.

2-    Experimental procedure- APA guidelines (V) para 2.

The reason behind allowing the research is, the research led us to get the health benefits, and this research is very useful for human and nonhuman both. Alzheimer and Parkinson is very prominent psycho-biological disorder so the research is very important to find the methods of curing the disease.

            Animal research is good for human but their is any benefits for animals?   

Case -2

Case study- The study is about the educational demonstration purpose and in this study, the department of psychology bring this research to improve the knowledge. In this research student shall use surgery on non-human animals (Rats) to understand the learning procedure of animal during cross over electrified grid.

Decision- The committee cannot allow the research because of some unidentified practical procedure.

Reason- in this research, a large number of animals required for every semester and the surgery shall be done by students so the probability to surviving the animals are very low. This research does not include any future benefits for animals or human.

Concerns regarding the ethical treatment of animals-

1-    Do we really need large number of animals to perform research?

2-    What is the possibility to surviving of animals after surgery?

3-    Do the students able to perform critical brain surgery and not harm the animals?

Citation-

1-    APA research guidelines, Personnel , Para- 1

2-    APA Ethical research guidelines, Personnel, Para- 4

3-    APA Ethical research guidelines, Education use of non-human animals, Para- 2

The reason behind not allowing the research is, the research is not performing exceptional knowledge, in this research a large number of animals require so that the probability to care and maintain the health is low.

Can we get alternatives of surgical research?