Psychotic Lab Mice 130
meltoast writes "We send lab mice through a maze to see their reactions and then take that information and apply it to our knowledge of the human psyche. Well, what if those mice are completely out of their minds? Discover recently ran an article showing that mice kept in a standard laboratory environment may be crazy. 'In one sequence, a mouse climbs the stainless-steel walls of its cage, hangs from the ceiling by its forelegs while gnawing on the bars, then drops to the floor, only to repeat the process endlessly. On the other side of the cage, a second mouse performs backflips, one per second, for up to 30 minutes at a time.'"
This isn't very surprising... (Score:5, Informative)
and I bet this applies to rats as well (which are, biological, just very big mice). I have some pet rats [darkdust.net] and a big cage, but normally they just run around in my living room... and they really love to run around.
When I have them in their cage for more than, say, three days they grab their bars like some prisoners and stare at me with very sad eyes :-) After some days they can really get depressed.
So now normally mice and rat cages in laboratories are way smaller than mine is (I know since a friend of mine works in a laboratory with rats). And they are not allowed to run around. When my rats get depressed after a few days, then I have no doubt most mice/rats get crazy after some months.
Imagine having nothing more than your living room to walk around, your whole life... oh wait, we geeks know that very well ;-)
Re:Tip of the iceberg.. (Score:2, Informative)
> captive, interbread population. You wouldn't
> trust it in humans - so why is it OK in animals
> and cultures?
Being captive and interbred means you can control
and predict certain factors of the research, which
is pretty essential in research.
If you had 100 randomly born mice and tried to
test a cancer drug on them, probably a very small
number of them would get cancer before they died
at the end of their very, very short lives.
If you engineer 100 mice to be prone to nasty,
guaranteed tumours, you waste less time, and more
importantly, waste less mice
Psychologists versus ethologists (Score:3, Informative)
The "American psychological tradition," exemplified by Watson, Lashley, B. F. Skinner, etc. emphasizes the study of animals which are almost domesticated for lab use, and bred for genetic uniformity. The studies are done under carefully "controlled" laboratory conditions which are highly unnatural for the animal. The positive aspect of this approach is that it fits well with the scientific method, and the studies are relatively easy to interpret and repeat. A lot of the studies tend to be directed at intelligence and problem-solving.
Unfortunately, the behavior of animals in captivity IS just plain weird. I'd never seen it described as "psychotic" before, but there is a certain Heisenberg-like effect: the effort to put animals in situations where their behavior can be studied with full scientific rigor causes their behavior to change.
The "ethological tradition," exemplified by Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, Donald Griffin, etc. emphasizes the behavior of natural populations of animals in natural or naturalistic settings. It is a biologist's approach rather than a psychologist's, and emphasizes evolutionary relationships. Social aspects are perhaps studied more than problem-solving.
Ethology may be a little softer and less rigorous. In the last decade, the phrase "cognitive ethology" has come into vogue and you will find cognitive ethologists using the word "consciousness" out loud and unafraid.
Obviously my personal sympathies are with the ethologists, but both traditions have yielded valuable scientific results.