I believe in a thing called love

As a behavioral neuroscientist, the bulk of my scientific data comes directly from the actions of animals. My experience thus far is predominantly from my graduate training in preclinical traumatic brain injury with rats. The tasks I perform with the animals can be as hands-off as activity monitoring (a motor and anxiety measure where the subject is simply placed into a box) or as intimate as forelimb placing (significantly restraining the animal and moving them about a plexiglass plate to stimulate their whiskers to examine reflexes). Despite the 'intimacy' of the task, handling and becoming familiar with the animals is a standard practice before using animals in a study, although its implementation differs wildly across researchers and is seldom mentioned in Methods sections.

The primary goal of handling is to make the animals familiar enough with the handler/researcher that they can satisfactorily perform the behavioral tasks that will be asked of them. At first, this means acquainting the animal with simply being touched, as many animals sit in tiny boxes without social stimulation of any kind as they await use in a study. Later, handling can mean manipulating the hands and feet of the animal, or even getting them used to being held in one's arms. 

But when I first started working with rodents, I was told not to get too emotionally close to the animals. "Don't get attached," was uttered on dozens of occasions by lab members at every level of training. Indeed, the practice of endearingly naming one's subjects is usually the sign that one isn't long for the scientist career.

Sure enough, I named one of my first subjects, a female retired breeder, because of her insatiably sweet yet voraciously intelligent behavior. Sure, "Number Seven" sung in a baby voice isn't a name by the strictest definition since its true label was AS-7, but I loved this animal. Just as everyone had told me not to do. When the day came to sacrifice the animal, my first on my own, I tried to hide how difficult it was for me. I shut the door after I was finally able to administer the euthanasia agent. I shut the door and I cried as I watched the animal die.

It would be almost three more years before I would bestow nicknames on animals again. But this time, I'm much more conscious of what that endearment means. Since then, I have been passionate - nay, outspoken - about how important it is to treat these precious animals with care, rather than data-producing meat sacks. When given the opportunity with my postdoctoral position, I was quick to insist that basic animal care include more enrichment items (for example, we now use nestlets and paper mouse houses). I insist that animals are never singly housed, unless necessitated by health concerns.

I fear that the dire need to produce research littered with p-values below .05, we forget that science should be the pursuit of truth. If our animals are truly modeling the human phenomena, we need to commit to that by treating them as preciously. Anything less is a conscious disassociation with sufficiently rigorous research. Why do some researchers forgo enrichment items for their animal subjects? Because the improvement of the reprehensibly impoverished environment is sufficient to endanger hopeful significant differences among experimental groups.

Scientists shouldn't be so afraid to not find significant differences that they allow subpar care of their animal subjects. I dream about a science that embraces and supports good, rigorous, and creative work. I also dream about manuscripts that write themselves. Sigh... another day, another day.