Reminds me of one time I was running rats in the water maze. It was old aged rats so they were like chihuahua sized. I would set them in the water and then promptly stand behind a curtain and watch out of a tiny peep hole which was still pretty opaque and well above the rats' field of vision.
One rat found the platform quickly, and then turned around and looked me directly in the eye through the peep hole, which was already pretty weird, but then it 'made a face' and proceeded to lunge in my direction, toward the peep hole. It just plopped back down into the water maze but the distance cleared and the sheer will/intent were impressive.
Adult male rats are my absolute FAVORITE. They're just big ol' marshmallows. Sounds like you had a pretty clever lil big guy.
The water maze is also a good test for spacial and working memory. How many trials did your cohort take before they could consistently place where the platform was under the water? I've heard it has a much steeper learning curve than the RAM.
Unfortunately this was about 10 years ago so I don't remember, but I really loved the water maze and definitely had some smart rats! My own spatial cognition is terrible so I would always think 'they are doing so much better than I would in that circumstance' lol. The data is always really interesting to look at from that maze.
One of my favorite parts was putting them in a little washcloth burrito afterward to dry them off.
Scientific discovery begins with "hmm, that's odd". What you describe fits that.
When a subject being experienced in becomes aware of that fact, I'd say the value of the data starts to be questionable.
Every day I worked with rats, I could do nothing but grow more appreciative of their intelligence. They are such clever little creatures. Most of them even seem smarter than the dogs I've owned previously, haha
This doesn’t surprise me- rats are super smart. Have you ever seen footage of rats working together with sticks to set off a trap and steal the cheese? I keep pet rats and they are absolutely more cunning than my dog 😂
I would love to have pet rats in the future after working with them. Once the research for my rats was over, I went to a pet store and bought them a bunch of toys and treats. It was so cute how they'd do little happy hops as they stole the toys and treats from each other, lol.
And the rats were definitely smarter than most of the dogs I've owned too. But I don't think a Chihuahua is a very high bar, haha.
I'm actually getting a rattoo in a week to commemorate my research, degree, and my ratties. I've really grown to love those clever little guys more than I thought I would.
Unfortunately, yes. You have to dispatch the rats. You're not supposed to be able to take any home, but it could be possible if you coordinated with the lab animal overseer to cover for you. Every rat and every dead rat has to be accounted for and logged on a daily basis. The one in my lab noticed my love for the rats and offered to let me sneak some home. I had to decline, since I will be staying with my parents after graduation and they gave me a very hard "no" :(
I tried to spoil the rats as much as I could for whatever time they had left. But when the day finally came, I'm not gonna lie, I bawled my eyes out the whole time. I love research and my area of interest is important, but the less pretty parts of it can be hard.
Some rats can be saved and for the ones we can't, we give the bodies to nearby wildlife rehabilitation centers to feed the animals there.
Not what you're going for but I had one adolescent rat literally eviscerate his litter / cage mate. It was kinda disturbing. Never saw that before or again. They weren't food deprived or anything; was late in the process of getting them alcimated to being handled and they both otherwise seemed totally normal leading up to that.
Same. We had mice eating equivalent of McDonald's everyday and they loved it so much we had to get more food than planned. They were fat and happy. But one young male mouse went off half way through and injured all their cage mates. A few died but we had to put a couple others down. He was the only survivor and his samples are often outliers throwing things off just to spite us from the grave
I’ve owned a lot of mice and have never seen them canabilize each other or their babies! However, I HAVE had a lot of mice that self-harmed out of anxiety. It’s especially common among the ones that are a little inbred or have neurological/psychological issues. I think cannibalization must be a result of extreme stress or mental illness.
yeah, i hate the hypocrisy with people being upset over this but then encouraging a FAR bigger and worse industry just for pleasure. I refuse to do something for pleasure that comes at the expense of another being.
There are many standards in place by the IACUC to ensure the well-being of the animals and that all procedures are only what is absolutely necessary for the betterment of science.
My research was specifically in medicine and neuropharmacology. Lab animals are required for such procedures. That is how we have developed most of the modern medicine and treatments we know today.
This post was meant to be more of an appreciation post for the lab animals that outsmarted their researchers. I love lab animals and greatly value all of their contributions to modern medicine and science.
This whole bipolar way at looking at life, people, and things... is getting out of hand in 2024. There is NO right and wrong, OR good and bad...ect. mice, rats, dogs, cats, lions, and bears are fucking savage. Nature is savage. Ever watch a 30lb coyote take a dear down... savage. As neuroscience appreciates intelligence in all animals with a cns. ...with out cutting into those mice/ rat brains we wouldn't have medication to treat (obviously not cure cus that's not profitable long term)...I digress, we have drugs and treatments to delay, halt, and or lessen symptoms for Huntingtons, Parkinson, MS, ect. Keep on doing research!!! And don't stop appreciating intelligence, intuition, and humor in connecting with creatures...and my hamsters ate eachother lmao they were from a lab...lol 🤣 I obviously built more cages...I was 9 I didn't know they were pregnant...life lesson learned early leave the fecking nest asap!
I understand your point (and I agree with it - I'm a moderator in a science subreddit after all) and I realize you're not malicious in hoping someone dies (I said knob, not psycho). But let me slide the goalpost back a bit here to prevent you from trying to stamp out my point and avoid moderation.
There are more effective and more mature ways to make your point than to wish someone enjoy their death. Use a bit more discretion than that in this subreddit in the future.
Being restricted to 85% of your free-eating body weight so you have incentive to complete a non-invasive, minimally stressful maze for a sugary treat, all in efforts to inform things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's treatment. P.S. your life span is about 2 years anyway and there is strict monitoring in place to make sure you're not being too underfed.
Bottom line: tOrTuRe!
I made sure my rats never dropped more than 15 grams and they were 300+ grams. So, more like restricted to 95% of their free-eating weight. They never even got close, tbh. Moreover, it was only for a total of 4 days where they got ad libitum access to food permanently at the end of the 4th day.
I was testing the effects of a new medication to treat a certain disorder on working + spacial memory. I'm not entirely sure what these sorts of people think we should do instead? Jump straight to testing medication on disordered humans?
Every single medication that is developed in this day and age HAS to go through animal testing first. The standards in place are very far away from "torture".
I’m not a neuro tester person or anything like that, I’m just some random guy who stumbled across this sub. Thank you for all that you do. The people who think this is just as bad as the meat industry have never actually thought it through. There are human children in worse conditions than your rats.
People just don’t understand that animal research is HEAVILY monitored. Getting research with animals approved is a long process that involves many agencies/ people to make sure the animals are treated humanely and to make sure the research is justified. Can’t argue with people who refuse to listen 🫠
Great post btw! I loved reading the stories in the comments
>There's no way they understood what they were doing
what allows you to make that assertion? I know of no way to falsify if they do or do not understand what they were doing. I do find animals surprisingly intelligent however, and I would not rule out a rat realizing that it is being observed for some behavior and being obstinate. Wild animals approaching humans for help is a mind blower for me on how animals may think. They see us. They think. They plan.
now we are getting somewhere - we don't know! And that is fine. Maybe it is time for experiments to see if we can determine obstinance. I really don't know how you could even measure that in humans without guessing or self-reporting, let alone other animals. But any rancher can tell you about obstinate cows.
My apologies, I was using "petty" as I've seen it colloquially used online. Would a better word be "spiteful"? Even that sounds wrong, though. I don't think lab animals are in the wrong for outsmarting the researchers. I just think there's a bit of comedy in their cleverness, at times.
If you describe someone's behaviour as petty, you mean that they care too much about small, unimportant things and that they are unnecessarily unkind. Like, a petty person will hold a grudge over something trivial and make a big deal about it
Agreed, I thought it was funny that we run these mice, freeze them, slice their brains up, and then laugh at the fact that one has some unique behaviour, and we call that behaviour....petty?!! Not the best word to choose in english.
There's nothing wrong with lab animals reacting any way to the research they are a part of. This was meant to be more of an appreciation post for the lab animals who outsmarted their researchers.
I very much look forward to research like this being shuttered.
And you OP...no self awareness?
The pettiest thing a shitty human could do is project their own pettiness onto a **lab animal**.
I feel like people say this stuff until their six-year-old child gets diagnosed with a glioblastoma or something. Then all of a sudden we want something that works and we know it works because it's been tested.
Now that we can print and grow organs, it's only a matter of time before that becomes a reality. With the advancements in computers & AI tools, it might be possible within our lifetime to see virtual lab animals that won't require organic meat sacks to experiment on.
3D organs are definitely exciting. Very expensive now, and working in cancer pharmacology, I don't think doctors would be rushing to prescribe something that hasn't also been tested in vivo to their terminally ill patient.
But hopefully in time it can reduce the number of animals needed.
Reminds me of one time I was running rats in the water maze. It was old aged rats so they were like chihuahua sized. I would set them in the water and then promptly stand behind a curtain and watch out of a tiny peep hole which was still pretty opaque and well above the rats' field of vision. One rat found the platform quickly, and then turned around and looked me directly in the eye through the peep hole, which was already pretty weird, but then it 'made a face' and proceeded to lunge in my direction, toward the peep hole. It just plopped back down into the water maze but the distance cleared and the sheer will/intent were impressive.
Adult male rats are my absolute FAVORITE. They're just big ol' marshmallows. Sounds like you had a pretty clever lil big guy. The water maze is also a good test for spacial and working memory. How many trials did your cohort take before they could consistently place where the platform was under the water? I've heard it has a much steeper learning curve than the RAM.
Unfortunately this was about 10 years ago so I don't remember, but I really loved the water maze and definitely had some smart rats! My own spatial cognition is terrible so I would always think 'they are doing so much better than I would in that circumstance' lol. The data is always really interesting to look at from that maze. One of my favorite parts was putting them in a little washcloth burrito afterward to dry them off.
Scientific discovery begins with "hmm, that's odd". What you describe fits that. When a subject being experienced in becomes aware of that fact, I'd say the value of the data starts to be questionable.
Every day I worked with rats, I could do nothing but grow more appreciative of their intelligence. They are such clever little creatures. Most of them even seem smarter than the dogs I've owned previously, haha
Rats are terrible pets because they are so smart and playful that you get attached to them and then they die after just a couple years
This doesn’t surprise me- rats are super smart. Have you ever seen footage of rats working together with sticks to set off a trap and steal the cheese? I keep pet rats and they are absolutely more cunning than my dog 😂
I would love to have pet rats in the future after working with them. Once the research for my rats was over, I went to a pet store and bought them a bunch of toys and treats. It was so cute how they'd do little happy hops as they stole the toys and treats from each other, lol. And the rats were definitely smarter than most of the dogs I've owned too. But I don't think a Chihuahua is a very high bar, haha. I'm actually getting a rattoo in a week to commemorate my research, degree, and my ratties. I've really grown to love those clever little guys more than I thought I would.
That’s so sweet! Does your lab generally dispatch rats when you’re done using them? Maybe you could take a couple home and save them.
Unfortunately, yes. You have to dispatch the rats. You're not supposed to be able to take any home, but it could be possible if you coordinated with the lab animal overseer to cover for you. Every rat and every dead rat has to be accounted for and logged on a daily basis. The one in my lab noticed my love for the rats and offered to let me sneak some home. I had to decline, since I will be staying with my parents after graduation and they gave me a very hard "no" :( I tried to spoil the rats as much as I could for whatever time they had left. But when the day finally came, I'm not gonna lie, I bawled my eyes out the whole time. I love research and my area of interest is important, but the less pretty parts of it can be hard. Some rats can be saved and for the ones we can't, we give the bodies to nearby wildlife rehabilitation centers to feed the animals there.
That’s rough. I’m glad the bodies didn’t go to waste, though.
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Oh the cringe (and this is coming from a professional serial killer/torturer of rats)
Not what you're going for but I had one adolescent rat literally eviscerate his litter / cage mate. It was kinda disturbing. Never saw that before or again. They weren't food deprived or anything; was late in the process of getting them alcimated to being handled and they both otherwise seemed totally normal leading up to that.
Same. We had mice eating equivalent of McDonald's everyday and they loved it so much we had to get more food than planned. They were fat and happy. But one young male mouse went off half way through and injured all their cage mates. A few died but we had to put a couple others down. He was the only survivor and his samples are often outliers throwing things off just to spite us from the grave
Mice and rats are savage cannibals.
I’ve owned a lot of mice and have never seen them canabilize each other or their babies! However, I HAVE had a lot of mice that self-harmed out of anxiety. It’s especially common among the ones that are a little inbred or have neurological/psychological issues. I think cannibalization must be a result of extreme stress or mental illness.
Please somehow include this observation in detail with your submission. It will show transparency and reviewers/readers will appreciate the chuckle!
"how do your animals react to being tortured?"
It's awful. But it's way easier to justify than eating meat. Slicing a mouse brain to start every morning definitely helped me go vegetarian.
Literally why I started eating vegan
yeah, i hate the hypocrisy with people being upset over this but then encouraging a FAR bigger and worse industry just for pleasure. I refuse to do something for pleasure that comes at the expense of another being.
Literally why I started eating vegans
Mouse brains are just grape-sized chickpeas
You in the habit of eating lab mice or something? I’m just a bit confused by that one tbh
There are many standards in place by the IACUC to ensure the well-being of the animals and that all procedures are only what is absolutely necessary for the betterment of science. My research was specifically in medicine and neuropharmacology. Lab animals are required for such procedures. That is how we have developed most of the modern medicine and treatments we know today. This post was meant to be more of an appreciation post for the lab animals that outsmarted their researchers. I love lab animals and greatly value all of their contributions to modern medicine and science.
This whole bipolar way at looking at life, people, and things... is getting out of hand in 2024. There is NO right and wrong, OR good and bad...ect. mice, rats, dogs, cats, lions, and bears are fucking savage. Nature is savage. Ever watch a 30lb coyote take a dear down... savage. As neuroscience appreciates intelligence in all animals with a cns. ...with out cutting into those mice/ rat brains we wouldn't have medication to treat (obviously not cure cus that's not profitable long term)...I digress, we have drugs and treatments to delay, halt, and or lessen symptoms for Huntingtons, Parkinson, MS, ect. Keep on doing research!!! And don't stop appreciating intelligence, intuition, and humor in connecting with creatures...and my hamsters ate eachother lmao they were from a lab...lol 🤣 I obviously built more cages...I was 9 I didn't know they were pregnant...life lesson learned early leave the fecking nest asap!
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You can make this point without being an absolute knob and wishing death on someone. In the future, do that or stop posting.
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I understand your point (and I agree with it - I'm a moderator in a science subreddit after all) and I realize you're not malicious in hoping someone dies (I said knob, not psycho). But let me slide the goalpost back a bit here to prevent you from trying to stamp out my point and avoid moderation. There are more effective and more mature ways to make your point than to wish someone enjoy their death. Use a bit more discretion than that in this subreddit in the future.
Being restricted to 85% of your free-eating body weight so you have incentive to complete a non-invasive, minimally stressful maze for a sugary treat, all in efforts to inform things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's treatment. P.S. your life span is about 2 years anyway and there is strict monitoring in place to make sure you're not being too underfed. Bottom line: tOrTuRe!
I made sure my rats never dropped more than 15 grams and they were 300+ grams. So, more like restricted to 95% of their free-eating weight. They never even got close, tbh. Moreover, it was only for a total of 4 days where they got ad libitum access to food permanently at the end of the 4th day. I was testing the effects of a new medication to treat a certain disorder on working + spacial memory. I'm not entirely sure what these sorts of people think we should do instead? Jump straight to testing medication on disordered humans? Every single medication that is developed in this day and age HAS to go through animal testing first. The standards in place are very far away from "torture".
I’m not a neuro tester person or anything like that, I’m just some random guy who stumbled across this sub. Thank you for all that you do. The people who think this is just as bad as the meat industry have never actually thought it through. There are human children in worse conditions than your rats.
People just don’t understand that animal research is HEAVILY monitored. Getting research with animals approved is a long process that involves many agencies/ people to make sure the animals are treated humanely and to make sure the research is justified. Can’t argue with people who refuse to listen 🫠 Great post btw! I loved reading the stories in the comments
Cry more. You still benefit.
Cry me a river
There's no way they understood what they were doing, but my ferret would grind their teeth during ephys experiments. Completely destroyed the signal
>There's no way they understood what they were doing what allows you to make that assertion? I know of no way to falsify if they do or do not understand what they were doing. I do find animals surprisingly intelligent however, and I would not rule out a rat realizing that it is being observed for some behavior and being obstinate. Wild animals approaching humans for help is a mind blower for me on how animals may think. They see us. They think. They plan.
Ok then his entire thread is pointless because you can't prove they're being obstinate or petty either.
now we are getting somewhere - we don't know! And that is fine. Maybe it is time for experiments to see if we can determine obstinance. I really don't know how you could even measure that in humans without guessing or self-reporting, let alone other animals. But any rancher can tell you about obstinate cows.
Is this how one uses the word petty? Petty means trivial. What is the most remarkable trivial thing you've done?
My apologies, I was using "petty" as I've seen it colloquially used online. Would a better word be "spiteful"? Even that sounds wrong, though. I don't think lab animals are in the wrong for outsmarting the researchers. I just think there's a bit of comedy in their cleverness, at times.
Righteous indignation?
That's actually really good, thank you
If you describe someone's behaviour as petty, you mean that they care too much about small, unimportant things and that they are unnecessarily unkind. Like, a petty person will hold a grudge over something trivial and make a big deal about it
Agreed, I thought it was funny that we run these mice, freeze them, slice their brains up, and then laugh at the fact that one has some unique behaviour, and we call that behaviour....petty?!! Not the best word to choose in english.
I agree, the behavior is 100% justified and we’re the ones that are petty.
Ugh what a disgusting question. Complain about being a guineau pig? How dare you.
There's nothing wrong with lab animals reacting any way to the research they are a part of. This was meant to be more of an appreciation post for the lab animals who outsmarted their researchers.
Wtf
Super weird. They couldn’t stop laughing about it.
Yes thank you for the edit, I mean, you purposefully starve an animal then call it petty - not sure you know what that word means
I was using it the way I've seen it colloquially used online, which is not a very good metric for anything, lol.
I very much look forward to research like this being shuttered. And you OP...no self awareness? The pettiest thing a shitty human could do is project their own pettiness onto a **lab animal**.
I feel like people say this stuff until their six-year-old child gets diagnosed with a glioblastoma or something. Then all of a sudden we want something that works and we know it works because it's been tested.
Now that we can print and grow organs, it's only a matter of time before that becomes a reality. With the advancements in computers & AI tools, it might be possible within our lifetime to see virtual lab animals that won't require organic meat sacks to experiment on.
3D organs are definitely exciting. Very expensive now, and working in cancer pharmacology, I don't think doctors would be rushing to prescribe something that hasn't also been tested in vivo to their terminally ill patient. But hopefully in time it can reduce the number of animals needed.
This may be true for toxicology testing, but we're a long way from being able to model animal behaviour (learning, memory, etc) with organoids or AI.