Comparative neuroscience

Comparative neuroscience

1. Sea slug (aplysia)

   • Learning

2. Cats

   • Sensory processing, incl vision

3. Rodents

   • motivation, drug addiction

4. Mice, fish, rats, birds = over 97% of all UK procedures

5. Is there homology?

   • Are structures I'm interested in present?
   • Are structures similar in
     • Connections
     • Chemical compositions
     • Gene expression
     • Function
   • Size and overall complexity aren't very important

6. Models

   • Spontaneous e.g. rodent ADHD
   • Toxic lesion e.g. Parkinson's in rodents/primates
   • Alter genetics, e.g. rodent Alzheimer's
   • Usefulness: face validity, construct validity, predictive validity

7. After preclinical work

   • Phases I-IV
     • I: Small number of healthy volunteers: doses needed, tolerance, mechanisms
     • IV: Larger number of patients, after approval for human use, detect side effects, long-term risks/benefits
     • II: Small number of patients: double blind RTCs testing tolerance, safety, efficacy
     • III. Large number of patients: may compare to other treatments.

8. Issues

   • Scientific
     • Sufficiently similar?
     • Administration method comparable?
   • Ethical
     • Do we have the right?
     • How much emphasis on welfare is acceptable?
   • Regulation
     • Home Office in the UK
     • Must be done by trained individuals
     • Internal ethical review
     • 3 Rs
       • Replacement: can't be replaced by a different type of experiment?
       • Refinement: refined to avoid long-lasting harm?
       • Reduction: minimum animal research necessary

9. Miller, Hale, Okano, Okabe, & Mitra (2019) argue for investigation of neural architecture in a broader range of species through the use of next-gen genetic techniques because the comparisons will provide information that any one species alone could not.