Comments on: How do you tell if a mouse is depressed?

By: rachel

rachel — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:17:00 +0000

me too – thankfully i don’t have to pay (much) for my meds (yay nhs!) but how i feel right now, i’d happily do tests like this all day for a bunch of researchers instead of having to go to work or be around people. maybe they’d know if the meds were working when i wouldn’t want to be on the programme any more?

By: m0g

m0g — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:35:00 +0000

You raise a good point: if it’s inconsistent amongst da hoomans, how do we reliably extrapolate to meeses? Exercise and good diet are my lodestars, YMMV @blueelm and I wish you all the best with yours.

By: Uncle Geo

Uncle Geo — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:07:00 +0000

…if that makes you feel better, but dude, you have no fargan idea what a mouse thinks or feels.

By: Tom_Has_Doubts

Tom_Has_Doubts — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:16:00 +0000

I’m enjoying the concept of Animal Fatalism, as if these mice have read too-much Thomas Hardy.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Ah, now cosmetics are a very different game.

Medicine is a more shaky area; but any human being that thinks the suffering of an animal is justified for the sake of their shampoo choice or mascara doesn’t deserve to live.

In fact those that test cosmetics on animals would make great candidates for testing human medicine. I think we’ve found an ethically sound source of test subjects!

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:26:00 +0000

Sorry, I see your point, and agree. Animal testing has definitely advanced medicine; whether or not we needed to kill other species to further our currently overpopulated one is certainly up for debate, but it definitely works.

By: bumpngrindcore

bumpngrindcore — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:18:00 +0000

Word.

Animal testing is a cause of depression in compassionate humans.

Between Jersey Shore, The Kardashians and Justin beiber fans I’m sure we can find enough human test-subjects there…

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:54:00 +0000

I thought that sounded familiar.

By: Beanolini

Beanolini — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:48:00 +0000

I was on the front porch, drowning a mouse in a bucket, when this van pulled up, which was strange.

By: Justine-Louise Manning

Justine-Louise Manning — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 06:52:00 +0000

These actually sound more reliable than the meters that are applied to humans.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 06:47:00 +0000

A mouse cannot speak. The psyche consists of those imaginative/philosophical functions which are used to imagine possible worlds and find meaning out of apparent meaninglessness when learning to speak and performs body/brain communication functions. The mind is the creation of a process of suppression of the psyche as language is acquired. This is a recent development in human ‘consciousness’. Apart from that a mouse simply has a brain and a body. It has no psyche and no mind. Isn’t depression a mind/psyche problem? Experimentation can only be ethically sound if the reasoning behind it is sound.

By: ashabot

ashabot — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 04:31:00 +0000

YesYes…all the good for “us” BUT… I ABHOR animal testing. It is vile and cruel and, even worse, so very often unnecessarily vile and cruel. It’s heartbreaking.

By: bnschlz

bnschlz — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:45:00 +0000

How fast can you run if you’re 10 minutes early?
How fast can you run to catch a bus?
How fast can you run if I’m chasing you with a very big knife?

Effort depends on motivation.

By: Hakuin

Hakuin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:02:00 +0000

do no evil, but when unavoidable, do as little evil as possible. They call it “skill”.

By: blueelm

blueelm — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:02:00 +0000

Damn I wish when I was depressed I could just exercise it away. Must be nice.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:08:00 +0000

Mouse can’t get out of pool, I know, it’s serious.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:06:00 +0000

Tempting block of cheese
On a hillside mice can’t reach
Will science make a man of me yet?

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:02:00 +0000

It’s not just one mouse. You’d have to do that test with a fair quantity of mice, some with the drug and some not, and take averages or do other statistical stuff on their times-to-giving-up.

By: m0g

m0g — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:30:00 +0000

Exercise is an antidote for depression. So, while we’re anthropomorphising: maybe the little guy swims his blues away, perks up, realises he’s drowning, back to square one.

By: m0g

m0g — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:25:00 +0000

Reminds me of when I was with my partner at a Clinique concession and she asked if their stuff was tested on animals: “Oh no! No, no no no no. Of course no. No, we test on students in New York”

By: Alistair Muldal

Alistair Muldal — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:25:00 +0000

I, too, often wonder whether I’m depressed or really smart… probably just depressed

By: m0g

m0g — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:22:00 +0000

*Why* try to test efficacy on another species? Especially if it’s so open to interpretation. Just keep animal testing for safety concerns and save the efficacy tests for backpackers.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:22:00 +0000

Sad mouse is sad.

By: Teller

Teller — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:57:00 +0000

Another behavioral indication by the mouse was he wearing his bathrobe all day.

On-thread: I knew a zen-y guy who felt an ant had as much right to life as a human. I understand that viewpoint, but I don’t share it. I reject testing eye make-up on rabbits, but have no such notion regarding serious medical research.

By: Uncle Geo

Uncle Geo — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:41:00 +0000

“But how do you know whether it’s working? After all, the mouse can’t tell you that it’s feeling better.”

I don’t know; the poor little guy in the pic sure looks pretty danged bummed out. I just want to pet him and tell him everything will be OK. But it won’t now, will it?

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Whether animal testing is ethical or not is open for debate. I just take issue with the idea that “it doesn’t tell us stuff that we wouldn’t otherwise know.”

By: Michael Manchester

Michael Manchester — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:32:00 +0000

“Because there are some things you can’t ethically test on humans, human medical research involves animal models.”

The same argument has been made to justify experiments on humans who were considered to be less worthy of protection. I assume I don’t need to provide examples. Testing on unwilling subjects is inherently unethical. Science was supposed to free us from the ignorance of religion. But we continue to create a hierarchy of value where we determine one life to be more important than another. In other words, we keep playing God.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:31:00 +0000

I’m sure the animals don’t care.

By: Sekino

Sekino — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Maybe the ‘depressed’ mouse is just really smart:

“Screw all that swimming… The big bastards will fish me out anyway…”

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:24:00 +0000

It’s nonsense to say that animal experiments tell us stuff about us that we wouldn’t otherwise know; we have to do the same tests on people to see if they react the same way.

But if a new experimental medication kills 100% of the animals it’s tested on then it probably won’t get to the “let’s try it on humans now” phase.