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AnOddFad t1_je4wqw4 wrote

Reply to comment by Witty_Interaction_77 in Forcing dominant mice to lose social status induced depression-like behaviors and reduced pleasure-seeking by Zadarex

I suppose so, but I feel like there are better ways to do this nowadays than animal testing.

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Witty_Interaction_77 t1_je4y4z3 wrote

Unfortunately, there isn't. Computer modelling just isn't there. Not to mention, getting natural physical reactions is impossible to model in any form other than observing live specimens in real time.

It's unfortunate. However necessary, unless you're willing to expend human lives to advance research.

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AnOddFad t1_je4yish wrote

We literally have countless depressed humans on earth visiting psychiatrists. All it would take is to give them a brain scan and voila, we have a much better result than this.

And if we’re worried about privacy? Just ask their permission or give a monetary reward. There are bound to be some people willing to help science.

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Witty_Interaction_77 t1_je50u9m wrote

That's not quite the process... also, you want to exploit people?

The thing about the testing (especially brain testing) is that it's super invasive, many times involving the death of the subject in order to visually see the brain or take samples. Drug testing results in debilitating conditions or death.

Subjecting humans to this would be horrible. Having "depressed people", or "prisoners", or any other human you suggest would be far more ethically and morally bankrupt than testing on the mice.

I think all life is valuable. However, mice reproduce very quickly, they live short lives, they are small one have traits that make them good for observing because they are close to humans, and they are also well... animals.

Humans have an innate need to discover things. Doing it this way is surprisingly the lesser of two evils. No matter what you think of medical animal testing, you've reaped its benefits at some point in your life.

If it makes you feel any better, the scientists are very nice to them.

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AnOddFad t1_je51ryd wrote

If it can’t be done with compassion I still don’t see the point.

There are already medications for depression, torturing mice isn’t going to teach us anything we can’t already fix or don’t already know.

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