I am having an inner dilemma… I have been studying Neuroscience lately, just by myself, I am reading books and studies all day, researching through projects and databases. But now I feel something about ethic issues, and I feel extremely sad. Anyone can help?
“IS there anybody OUT there?”
I don’t understand your post. What is the ethical issue you are struggling with?
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yeah so what is the issue ?
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I feel that if I want go further in Neuroscience I can do just in silico experimentation, one day. I do not like animal models for schizophrenia and for example cerebroids make me think about bioethics. So I am thinking if I should stop and move in another direction or not.
Are en silico models available today?
Do you feel brain cell cultures grown from human skin stem cells present an ethical issue?
I think in silico experimentation is evolving fast. Answering your question that subject makes me just sad and a little bit depressive. Bioethics as to do more with animals regarding to what I mentioned, not exactly cells i think, it depends… not sure. I read about microdialysis too and I feel a little bit sick.
Maybe I am having some paranoid thoughts.
I feel very sad working with animal models too…I have had to kill many mice…and I’ve had to work with rats which is so sad for me as I have pet rats…part of the reason I adopted former lab rats was to ease my guilt about what we put all those poor animals through…I never want to do animal research again.
If you want to avoid using animal models you could do research using cells. There are new techniques in development that allow you to actually grow neurons from normal cells and then study them in culture, no animals harmed. It’s not the same or as accurate as cells in an actual animal and for some things cells function completely differently based on whether they’re in an animal or not but you can work with cells for some areas.
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I think stem cells are useful; with a simple biopsy, through fibroblasts, with skin we can do a lot, and 3D cultures too… maybe cerebroids are not that bad… Thanks again @Anna.
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