|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:46 pm
To those of you who have a mental-illness, have you ever volunteered to take part in a study of that illness, or of a medication that treats the symptoms of your illness? What was your experience? What was the study? Were you compensated for your time? Do you know the results of the study? If you haven't participated in such a study, would you even want to? Why or why not?
To everyone, how do you feel about the clinical trial system in your country? Do you think that it takes too long for helpful drugs to be approved? Or are some unsafe drugs released before sufficient testing is completed? On a related note, how do you feel about testing psychiatric drugs on animals? Do you feel that there's enough we can tell about the safety of neuroleptics, let alone the animals' subjective psychological experience?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:15 pm
How do they tell if animals are crazy? O_o
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:25 pm
M is for M+Ms How do they tell if animals are crazy? That's what I'm wondering! I'm hoping that one of our Psychology scholars will reply with the answer!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:29 am
As for the use of rats in testing drugs...
Psychology (specially experimental analysis of behavior) has a long tradition of behavior study of rats. There's a huge discussion over the validity of such laboratory findings over human behavior, but I don't think it's worth to discuss this point now.
The thing is laboratory studies evaluate the animal's basic abilities and behavior, like rate of responding, discrimination of color, discrimination of sounds, adjunctive behavior (I'm not sure if that's what it's called, refers to colateral behavior), optimization of responding, etc. It all has do to with human behavior. And, of course, there are many human studies based on principles similar to those with rats, with similar results.
If you administrate a drug in a rat, you'll see changes in some or all of those abilities/behavior. He may respond less (be less active), respond more, have trouble discriminating colors, have trouble discriminating which source of reinforcement is better, and many other alterations. Of course he won't tell you how he's feeling, but such analysis of his behavior is very productive in understanding the effects of the drugs.
Most of mental illness can be described as behavioral processes, explained in terms of elementary behaviors and abilities.
One example I'm fairly familiar with:
A rat in deprivation of water will press a lever for water, in his normal conditions. If you give him small amounts of electrical shocks in random interval of times, without giving him the possibility of stopping those shocks with any form of behavior, eventually the rat will stop pressing the lever, even if he's still deprived of water.
It's an animal model commonly used for the understanding of depression.
Uhm... I'll stop before I get too confusing, if anyone wants some more info on that, I'll try to clarify it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:02 am
There are alot of different animal models for rats. While I dont administer drugs to the animals in my lab (rats and pigeons) I know of other labs that do.
Rats are frequently used in a swim test for depression. This means they breed rates to exhibit traits of depression and then they medicate them to deal with thier depression. They then put them in a big pool containers with some floats on. Depending on the swim response exhibited by the rats over the session time tells about how depressed it is. This is generally with a blind experimenter who doesnt know if the rat is medicated or not. This model has gotten some criticism for breeding in depressed behaviors.
The real trouble with animal models is being creative. My girlfirend is doing a thesis on social dominance and she made a special feeding tray for her birds such that one could eat a time. The birds who puched thier way through to the food were socially dominant.
The animal models tend to eb better when the are focused on a single behavior or behavior group. The way these models are arranged though depends entirely on what the experimentor is trying to get at.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:18 pm
Calunio The thing is laboratory studies evaluate the animal's basic abilities and behavior, like rate of responding, discrimination of color, discrimination of sounds, adjunctive behavior (I'm not sure if that's what it's called, refers to colateral behavior), optimization of responding, etc. It all has do to with human behavior. Thank you so much! I guess I'm looking for some specific examples of how concrete behaviors can translate into the treatment of more subjective human conditions. For example, how would one know that a animal was hallucinating in order to test an anti-psychotic? Wise Dr Funk Rats are frequently used in a swim test for depression. This means they breed rates to exhibit traits of depression and then they medicate them to deal with thier depression. Could you give me an example of how a rat would exhibit a trait of Depression?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:04 am
Smart Alex Calunio The thing is laboratory studies evaluate the animal's basic abilities and behavior, like rate of responding, discrimination of color, discrimination of sounds, adjunctive behavior (I'm not sure if that's what it's called, refers to colateral behavior), optimization of responding, etc. It all has do to with human behavior. Thank you so much! I guess I'm looking for some specific examples of how concrete behaviors can translate into the treatment of more subjective human conditions. For example, how would one know that a animal was hallucinating in order to test an anti-psychotic? You know the way animals communicate or interact with one another? Like when dogs sniff each other's behinds or jump up at humans? Perhaps they'd do that sort of thign to the air? If an animal was hallucinating and you watched it cloesely, you could probably tell. Like cat's ears twich when they hear things, so if they heard stuff that wasn't real, their ears would twitch a lot when it was silent. This is just guessing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:50 am
I've never been old enough, but now I am...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:04 pm
Quote: Like cat's ears twich when they hear things, so if they heard stuff that wasn't real, their ears would twitch a lot when it was silent. That sort of thing would actually be very difficult to tell from normal behavior, I think. Cats always seem to be reacting to things that aren't there, either because they are playing around, or because they are reacting to things that humans can not detect, but they can. I think something that they would need to be more aware of is abnormal behaviors in those animals. It would also be necessary to have a control group of "normal" animals to compare behavior to, as has been mentioned in the experiments others have explained.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:54 pm
LuckieDuckie I've never been old enough, but now I am... Cool! Are you from Russia? M is for M+Ms You know the way animals communicate or interact with one another? Like when dogs sniff each other's behinds or jump up at humans? Perhaps they'd do that sort of thign to the air? If an animal was hallucinating and you watched it cloesely, you could probably tell. Like cat's ears twich when they hear things, so if they heard stuff that wasn't real, their ears would twitch a lot when it was silent. Civet Moon That sort of thing would actually be very difficult to tell from normal behavior, I think. Cats always seem to be reacting to things that aren't there, either because they are playing around, or because they are reacting to things that humans can not detect, but they can. I think something that they would need to be more aware of is abnormal behaviors in those animals. It would also be necessary to have a control group of "normal" animals to compare behavior to, as has been mentioned in the experiments others have explained. Civet Moon has a good point. But another issue is that those abnormal behaviors in lab animals are induced by researchers. Sometimes by use of chemicals, and other times through genetic work. So I think it might be dangerous to assume that an animal was hallucinating due to those abnormal behaviors, when it really could just be having any number of freaky Central Nervous System reactions to the drugs or gene therapy it just experienced! Even a control group of non-treated animals would still not make that question go away.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:55 pm
LuckieDuckie I've never been old enough, but now I am... Cool! Are you from Russia? M is for M+Ms If an animal was hallucinating and you watched it cloesely, you could probably tell. Civet Moon That sort of thing would actually be very difficult to tell from normal behavior. [...] I think something that they would need to be more aware of is abnormal behaviors in those animals. It would also be necessary to have a control group of "normal" animals to compare behavior to. Civet Moon has a good point. But another issue is that those abnormal behaviors in lab animals are induced by researchers. They can't just wait for an abnormal animal to be born somewhere in the world. So they are generated, sometimes by use of chemicals, and other times through genetic work. So I think it might be dangerous to assume that an animal was hallucinating due to those abnormal behaviors, when it really could just be having any number of freaky Central Nervous System reactions to the drugs or gene therapy it just experienced! I mean, it's not like we could do human experiments on those chemicals and drugs to prove that they work! That would be unethical! Even a control group of non-treated animals would still not make that question go away.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 1:26 pm
I haven't yet, but I would. Free meds, and hey, it might actually work for me.
Besides, I've switched meds often enough, if there's a new med that'll work, I'd like to try it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:00 pm
h3rsh3y I haven't yet, but I would. Free meds, and hey, it might actually work for me.
Besides, I've switched meds often enough, if there's a new med that'll work, I'd like to try it. Yeah, I'm with you. Free meds, and free money on top of that! I'm always on the lookout for new medications that are going into the Clinical Testing phase! I have a lot of side-effects with all the anti-psychotic medications that are available to me. It's my hope that one of the new experimental drugs will have less side-effects for me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:23 pm
I was on Strattera (my parents consented) for a few months before it got FDA approval and all. I really hate the medication. But now when I try to go off it, I have major ADD symptoms. Even though I'm not ADD. So...I'm stuck with it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:10 pm
I'd do it. I mean free money with the possibility of having my anxiety reduced significantly enough. I'm not currently happy with all the medications I'm on, so yeah.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
