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Hi Everyone,

My name is Alex Tuttle. I am currently completing my last semester at Haverford College as a Psychology Major, where my primary interest lies in studying animal behavior. For the past two and a half years my research has focused on understanding how environmental influences modify both pain perception and behavioral responses in mice, during which time I had the pleasure to work on several projects with both Kara Brown and Elizabeth Bitler, under the direction of Dr. Wendy Sternberg.

As an undergraduate student working primarily with research animals (although we do human testing as well!), I have had to come to terms with many issues regarding the validity and benefits of our research. While I am interested to explore these issues further with the class at large, this forum is designed to promote discussion outside of the classroom. Therefore, I would like to propose a few points relating to the benefits of animal models which I have thought about for the past several years. First and foremost, I believe that animals have allowed scientists to study otherwise unanswerable questions relating to behavior and the brain. Using my own experiences as examples, Dr. Sternberg’s lab has been focused most recently on how environmental factors influence pain behavior in animals which are evolutionarily similar to us. It has been demonstrated, for example, that mice appear to modulate their pain-directed behavior when they are with fellow cagemates, or mice who share a close social environment. This modulation of pain response has been dubbed by some researchers (Langford et al., 2006) as a low-level, “perceptual” form of empathic behavior when they are in proximity with one another. In other words, these animal models appear capable of demonstrating complex social interactions with one another, as well as modifying other behaviors based on a social context.

Why is research like this important? In the long run, we hope that this research will lead to a better model explaining social dysfunctional disorders like Asperger’s and Autism. In the immediate future, however, these findings suggest that neuroscientists have an immediate way to parse out the different environmental, genetic, and biological factors which compose this human-like behavior. It should be noted that mice do not appear to have the same level of emotional or cognitive development as humans; as such, it is foolish to claim that their social behavior is identical to that of humans. Rather, it allows scientists to selectively manipulate different aspects of the animal’s biology, genetic makeup, and experiences to put forth theories as to how empathic responses are generated (or disrupted) in mammalian models. It also allows scientists to causally explain why or how a behavior is generated, rather than being limited to explaining these phenomena in terms of correlations between human behavior and other factors.

As a researcher, I would like to believe that all of my research is directly applicable to solving human problems and bettering our future. It is hard to prove in every instance, however, that animal research will lead to eventual human therapies or remediation. Instead, a behavioral neuroscientist must do his or her best in designing targeted research paradigms which maximize success and minimize excesses, as scientists do in other disciplines. Unlike a chemist or physicist, however, neuroscientists do not have adequate artificial or computational models to effectively answer our questions. While science has made wonderful advances, from building an artificial heart to constructing an entire prokaryotic organism from scratch, the brain remains the most complex (and elusive) machine that humans have encountered to date. In answering the question of empathic behavior, for example, our lab has already discovered that several sexual hormones and neuropeptides appear to mediate social responses in mice, but only in certain socially specific contexts. In order to further explore the biochemical underpinnings of these behaviors, however, we need brains. As Tom Cruise once said, “…There is no substitute.”

The question of animal rights is a complex issue, and one to which many have an opinion. I look forward to discussing these issues with you as this semester continues, but I would like to leave this topic with a final thought. Human history has relied on the domestication and the use of many animal species; many rely on animals as a source of food, clothing, fuel, fertilizer, friendship. I would argue that the use of animals to save human life, as well as to make it better, justify animal research. Furthermore, I view animal research as a step that stems from our long and intimate relationships with other animal species. In the area of pain research alone animal research has already lead to significant discoveries which have markedly improved human life. For example, Kosterlitz and Hughes used pig brains in 1975 to discover one class of the body’s innate opiates, which they dubbed enkephalins. More recently, researchers used animal models to discover that both central and peripheral analgesia are necessary to prevent long-lasting postoperative pain, as well as central sensitization and “wind-up,” which can lead to permanent changes in the way the body perceives physical stimuli following a traumatic event. It is important to add that humans are not the sole beneficiaries of these discoveries; veterinary science has also been greatly furthered by this research. In summary, it is my hope that our current work with animal models will continue to lead to new discoveries which better all of animal-kind. Thanks for reading!

~Alex Tuttle

Haverford '08