‘Music-loving’ rats: what the media is forgetting

‘Music-loving’ rats: what the media is forgetting
25.11.2022
International
‘Music-loving’ rats: what the media is forgetting
Animal testing

In mid-November, several newspapers reported on a Japanese experiment showing that rats synchronise their head movements with a musical beat. But all of them have forgotten to talk about the suffering endured by the rats for this experiment: the devices screwed to their skulls, depriving them of water, brain surgery, and death.

From the ‘quirky’ column of Radio Classique to the affirmation that “this experiment [can] seem cute and unimportant” on a private blog, passing by an inserted image of a rat playing the saxophone in Futura-Sciences and la Dépêche and by the idea that “in addition to having a sense of rhythm, rats also have taste” in the Huffington Post, you would have thought that the rats had fun listening to Mozart or Queen.

A gulf between press communications and reality

But, as quickly pointed out on Twitter by Sébastien Moro (Cervelle d’Oiseau), a populariser in ethology, reading the original study you are very quickly disillusioned.

Firstly, no article mentions that it involved 23 rats aged from nine to ten weeks, or that the declaration from the Japanese team had forgotten to specify the sex of these animals — an important specification, if only to avoid the methodological biases and problems with reproductive experiments.

No mention of suffering

The articles that talk about the accelerometer attached to the heads of ten rats do not explain the fact that the box made to keep the apparatus in place has been screwed to the skull of the rats after drilling holes in it, then reinforced with cement.

Furthermore, no article explains that the rats have been deprived of water in order to motivate them to stand on two legs to reach a bottle kept up high, so as to better observe their head movements. This “motivation” has been developed over several days during repeated sessions of thirty minutes, until they learn to stand up immediately upon entering the assessment box.

Too many experiments

Worse: even in the article from TrustMyScience, which talks a little more than the others about other hypotheses and the methodology of the study, we have not found any mention of the electrophysiological experiment that followed, during which thirteen remaining rats were subjected to brain surgery under anaesthetic to implant electrodes through the skull and damage one of their two eardrums, with the aim of analysing the activity of the auditory cortex.

And no one wants to remind you that all of the rats have been killed following the experiments.

An unacceptable situation nowadays

Clearly, having avoided all potentially controversial aspects of media coverage, the ethical discussion did not appear anywhere in the media. However, animal ethics specialists do exist (thinking in particular about the signatories of the recent Montreal Declaration).

In any event, it does not seem acceptable nowadays to qualify studies as “quirky” or “cute” when they involve making animals suffer and killing them to serve our own interests.

One Voice has written to the editorial staff of the media involved as well as the Agence France Presse (AFP: a French international news agency) to bring this situation to their attention and we are awaiting a response.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice is filing a complaint against Genclis for abuse of animals in laboratories

One Voice is filing a complaint against Genclis for abuse of animals in laboratories
20.11.2022
France
One Voice is filing a complaint against Genclis for abuse of animals in laboratories
Animal testing

On 6 April 2022, One Voice brought a complaint against Genclis (Genomic Clinical Synergy) to the Nancy Legal Tribunal for abuse of animals placed under the care of an owning establishment and using animals for scientific purposes (mice, who are bred and used for testing). The Association has also requested the suspension of the authorisation granted to this business to carry out their activities.

We have had access to the inspection report from the DDPP (the veterinarians from the Prefecture) following an administrative procedure by one of our team. This report mentions numerous minor and intermediate non-conformities, in particular inclined towards housing and environment (minor non-conformity following problems with materials, lighting, and temperature), the staff (intermediate non-conformity, insufficiencies in the set-up followed by agents, in their follow-up, in the work carried out by animal welfare organisations, and in the tasks assigned to veterinarians), the animals and the procedures (intermediate non-conformity, the 3Rs strategy and the endpoint are to be reworked) as well as the documents (minor non-conformity, certain obligatory mentions are missing from the documents).

The major non-conformity is connected to the fact that several hundred mice have been reused in experiments before the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation and/or the ethical committee had given their agreement. Worse, one of the projects had even been implemented before the request had been filed! And this, for projects of which the oldest dates back to 20 November 2019, is more than a year and a half before this inspection.

Hundreds of mice have therefore been experimented on again and again for years without authorisation and have been kept in non-standard living conditions under the supervision of staff who are poorly trained and are therefore incompetent with regard to animal welfare! We think that these mice, each of which is an individual in its own right, have suffered mistreatment, and we are calling for a suspension of the agreement from the Genclis company. Our complaint went to the public prosecutor on 6 April.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Forced swimming: other approaches are possible

Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
07.11.2022
France
Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
Animal testing

The Ministry of Research has approved electric shock and forced swimming procedures this year in France, while businesses worldwide are abandoning this largely criticised test that lobbies have trouble defending. Animals should not suffer for us, especially as substitution methods and non-experimental solutions exist to help people who are suffering.

The recent uses of the forced swimming test do not look to mimic human depression (something which this test does very badly), but to predict the efficacy of molecules on the depressive state. Despite quite poor recent data in terms of the proportion of positive results for this prediction, we therefore cannot say that the forced swimming test is absolutely useless if it is carried out rigorously and with control of all of the variables that can influence the result. But the fact that a test using animals can be useful is not to say that it is justified.

Furthermore, as recently remarked by the NC3R (British centre mainly dedicated to alternatives for animal experimentation), effective molecules and pioneering routes could have been forgotten due to overconfidence in the results of this test.

In addition, other tests exist that are much less stressful for the animals, particularly in measuring their memory capacity to evaluate the effect of different molecules. But it is still the breeding of animals, caging them, and using them for our interests that is unacceptable.

Substitution methods

If we stick to ‘replacement’ as defined by French regulations, with the idea of aiming for the same short-term objectives and discovering the same experimental results without animals, the solutions are indeed very few but they exist and can be developed.

Cell culture research in this field does not allow us to estimate the behavioural effect of medications but is interesting in evaluating the biological effects which can be largely predictable concerning the efficacy of antidepressants. This is what was recently highlighted by the NC3R, by noting the predictive capacity already established in this field and the promising development of the amount of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in human blood and neuronal cell cultures.

From a technical standpoint, “computational psychiatry” is developed over several years, which will undoubtedly quickly make it possible to study many aspects of psychiatric diseases without hurting anyone.

But there may be better ways to measure: favouring prevention and putting favourable conditions in place for effective psychotherapy.

Prevention and non-medical treatments

When it comes to prevention, priority should be given to funding work on the external factors of depression and chronic stress in order to reduce the number of people affected by depression brought on by unfit working conditions or by exposure to a harmful social, political, and economic environment. Subsidies are not willingly extended. The money that funds forced swimming tests and the suffering inflicted on these animals is money that will not be used for working on the prevention of depression^[1].

In addition, in a report from a very recent French documentary, Franck Ramus (a researcher in cognitive sciences) highlighted the link between the high use of psychoactive drugs in France and the superiority of the university curriculum for psychology by approaches based on beliefs rather than on proof, which had already been highlighted during a conference held in 2013 on this subject. The public therefore found themselves exposed to a majority of psychologists and psychiatrists who use unsuitable tools to treat them. Instead of funding the use of animals to develop medicine further, we can better use this money to embark upon an urgent reform of teaching psychotherapy and putting in place public information campaigns aiming to guide them towards effective treatments.

Animals must not suffer for us

Rats, these wonderful creatures full of empathy, who laugh, who play, who think, who feel emotions as complex as regret, do not have to suffer for us.

And what we can say for certain today is that the 600 rats who have been approved by the Ministry of Research to be used for repeated electric shock and forced swimming tests will suffer. This is happening in 2022, in France.

Join us in asking the Ministry of Research to ban these tests

• Template (download here) to send via the Ministry’s form
• By sending tweets to the Ministry following the examples below:

On cruelty

Click on the text to tweet: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming for animals! Public powers should not authorise these cruel experiments @sup_recherche #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/_h2fq+ via @onevoiceanimal

Click on the text to tweet: .@sup_recherche, France must commit, like laboratories abroad, to put an end to cruel forced swimming tests on mice and rats!
#StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/UPW92+ via @onevoiceanimal

On alternatives

Click on the text to tweet: Making rats depressed with electric shocks will not give more effective treatments. Stop #AnimalTesting, sup_recherche ! #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/iV6Un+ via @onevoiceanimal

Click on the text to tweet: Instead of torturing rats to produce yet more medications, train psychologists and psychiatrists with 21st century tools!
@sup_recherche #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/omBL7+ via @onevoiceanimal

Click on the text to tweet: Stop electric shocks and forced swimming! More funding for in vitro methods! @sup_recherche #StopForcedSwimming #EndAnimalTesting #AnimalTesting https://ctt.ec/c1dLo+ via @onevoiceanimal

^[1] The reallocation of funds is not particularly simple and must be done on a political level for public funding, and by raising awareness of foundations and other organisations for private subsidies. But this reallocation seems largely necessary when we see the suffering that is generated by the current allocation of funding.

This article is the fourth in a series of five on forced swimming:

1. Electric shocks and forced swimming in France in 2022
2. Forced swimming: footage
3. Forced swimming: the businesses moving forward and the industry that resists
4. Forced swimming: other approaches are possible
5. Forced swimming: a long-term battle

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

Animal testing on the radio

Animal testing on the radio
26.10.2022
France
Animal testing on the radio
Animal testing

Despite requests from us, including a letter sent to France Culture and to the Radio France intermediary to expose them to the problems of framing and the content of the recent episode on animal testing, we have not received any response. You can help to change things.

On 7 September, France Culture invited two people who are in favour of animal testing on to ‘La Science — CQFD’, preventing any substantive debate on ethical issues.

A valuable episode

Since this date, we have regularly listened to ‘La Science – CQFD’. In contrast with the episode on animal testing, we particularly recommend that you listen to the episodes from 9 and 30 September, which gave the floor to Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, ethologists and primatologists.

Another positive point: on 28 September, a researcher invited on to the episode regarding Alzheimer’s disease criticised the methodologies currently used in animal testing to study this pathology and to a great extent put forward the use in studying disorders directly on the people who are affected.

Where is the debate on ethics?

Unfortunately, the report from 28 September presented a recent French study having consisted of implanting neuronal cells of humans affected by Alzheimer’s into mice… without calling into question the ethicsof this practice. Animal testing therefore seems to be considered by default to be an acceptable practice in the episode.

The ethical questioning on practices exploiting animals must be systematic, however. This incidentally is the reason for the Montreal Declaration, launched on 4 October and today gathering more than 500 signatures from global specialists on moral and political philosophy and animal ethics.

You can help

Today, we therefore invite you to express your feelings to the Radio France mediator in a brief and polite manner, to highlight the quality of ‘La Science – CQFD’ in general, the specific problems in the 7 September episode on animal testing, and the ethical and social urgency of always questioning these practices when they are mentioned on air in public.

With your help, it will be possible to open the path towards a true in-depth public debate so that the situation finally evolves to fast-track the end of animal testing.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice