MetaChat - what is the matter with people?????!!!!!!

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

27 October 2009

what is the matter with people?????!!!!!! "Her findings are based on extensive studies with a model of severely depressed rats that mirror many behavioral and physiological abnormalities found in patients with major depression. The rats, after decades of development, are believed to be the most depressed in the world."→[More:]

WTF!!!!!

these people are worse than murderers. At least depressed people can kill themselves. Rats can't. And it's all legal, and in the science magazine like it's actually some type of achievement.
I mean,like, reasonably depressed rats aren't enough? Like most rats wouldn't be depressed in the first case just being in captivity, you need decades of development, meaning generation after generation, to get them unimaginably depressed, and you can't think of a better way than that to do things???!!!

Karma.....

post by: serena at: 23:34 | 17 comments

Uh, maybe it'll help a person with depression? They aren't doing it just to fuck with rats.

posted by mullacc 28 October | 00:00

They aren't doing it just to fuck with rats.

I am.

posted by Eideteker 28 October | 00:05

My anecdotal observations support the idea that drugs for depression seem to help people with stress induced issues but few other depressives. While I don't support the mistreatment of rats this seems like a worthwhile study.

posted by arse_hat 28 October | 00:17

I've had my life saved by antidepressants and cancer treatment, both of which were developed on rats. I suppose I could have indeed killed myself (god knows I thought of it plenty of times for a couple of years, to the point where I was researching whether or not I would accidentally kill anyone else if I stuck my head in my oven) or just waited to die as the cancer consumed my body, but all things considered, I'm pretty much OK with the fact that some rats suffered so that I -- and millions of other humans like me -- could live.

posted by scody 28 October | 01:34

Speaking as an ex-reasonably depressed person, I doubt that these rats will notice the difference. Their depressed state will seem quite normal to them.

I will be forever in debt to all the rats whose lives have been sacrificed for my sanity.

posted by Daniel Charms 28 October | 02:34

Did you just find out that we test drugs on rats? It wasn't a secret.

posted by octothorpe 28 October | 06:32

I understand your upset. It hurts me too to know that animals are suffering, necessary though it might be. One way to offset this, karmically speaking, would be to adopt an animal from your local shelter. If you cannot do this, perhaps volunteer at the shelter. You cannot help these particular rats; you can help some other animal(s). Thus the world remains in balance.

posted by desjardins 28 October | 07:16

Hrm. They don't actually describe how they developed the depressed rats. I'm very familiar with the chronic stress paradigm and agree that the current models of depression in animals are not hitting the right target (I think most people that work in the field agree). I wonder if she's published her stuff yet, or if it's still in abstract form. I'm still a member of SfN, so I'll go hunting around.

posted by gaspode 28 October | 08:13

If it is any consolation, I assume these rats are fed an optimum diet. live in a sanitary environment and are relatively disease free.

posted by Ardiril 28 October | 10:50

I am also worse than murderers.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 28 October | 12:17

Ardiril: If it's a reputable center, absolutely their care is comparatively excellent. As for depressed rats, I believe it is a matter of knocking out genes for neurotransmitter receptors.

One way to test for depression in mice (I don't know if this is also applicable to rats): if you pick up a mouse by the tail, it should struggle to try to either right itself, or get back on the surface from which you lifted it. Depressed mice just hang there.

And yes, learning that fact made me depressed.

posted by ltracey 28 October | 19:56

Depressed mice just hang there.

That's fascinating.

posted by Miko 28 October | 22:20

Yeah, these rodent models are where the "learned helplessness" model of depression came from.

posted by ikkyu2 29 October | 10:37

The main problem with rodent models of depression is that most of them are essentially tautological: if the behavior can be eradicated with an antidepressant, it must be a depressive behavior! The people who do depression research in animals spend a lot of time fighting over the appropriate models. And the literature is a fucking mess because although there are bajillions of studies, so many of them use slightly different models because they disagree with other ones, so not many studies are directly comparable.

It's annoying.

(don't get me started on animal models of stroke. grar!)

posted by gaspode 29 October | 10:43

Two words: Black Death. They had it coming.

posted by Halloween Jack 29 October | 12:42

Disclaimer: I've suffered from major depression myself, and my father was hospitalized for it. This comment isn't meant to disparage the pain sufferers of depression feel.

However, when I read the sentence about depressed rats all I could think of was depressed rats reading the Bell Jar, listening to Joy Division in their cages, smoking while arguing with each other over whether William Styron or Andrew Sullivan wrote the better book about depression, wearing little rat-sized Morrissey t-shirts. And it made me laugh.

posted by miss-lapin 29 October | 13:50

Halloween Jack: Black Death was caused by fleas that just happened to be on black rats (Rattus rattus). Rats were the carriers, not the cause. Also, the rats used in testing (lab rats) are brown rats (Rattus norvegicus). Fancy rats (pet rats) are also brown rats.

THE MORE YOU KNOW.™

posted by deborah 29 October | 15:02

← So I followed my dreams: || Bob Dylan Has a Christmas Album →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN