Non Human Primates

In today’s world, we face a global endemic of mental illnesses, ranging from Schizophrenia to Dementia and Alzheimer’s. To combat such detriments, we are forced to enter the brain in order to get a better understanding of its workings. This understanding of mental processes is reached mostly through peering into the nervous system of various creatures, including human beings. Such efforts reside mostly in the field of neuroscience.
The study of the nervous system dates back to Ancient Egypt, in which the surgical procedure of trepanation was prevalent. Some manuscripts indicate that they had some knowledge of the symptoms of brain damage. These studies have now evolved to allow us to study the nervous system in all of its aspects.
As of today, …show more content…
Many of the medical advances we have made were only possible through animal research. Some of these advances would be very controversial had they involved manipulating the nervous system of Homo sapiens. For instance, neuroscientists use non-human primates to discover how diseases and their potential therapies affect the entire body. Procedures such as these, if performed on humans, would be extremely challenging in regards to replicating data. Not only is replication a major drawback in testing humans, reliability suffers as well. In neural research involving humans, the condition being studied must have already been present before the research. Subsequently, the time that the condition has to develop can also allow the brain to reorganize functionally. “Thus, one may be misled about the function of the area in the normal brain” (AnimalResearch.info, n.d.). If humanity decided to deny animal experimentation, we would also deny ourselves understanding of the …show more content…
I asked them, “In testing in neuroscience, do you think it is better to use humans or other animals?” Every single participant claimed that the answer was risk-dependent and would be based on the purpose of the testing itself. This survey may be viewed as incredibly biased due to the fact that every employee understood that non-human testing will never be sufficient in explaining the complexity of the human brain. However, this is a view that some brain research authorities hold.

According to the Dana Foundation, “many animal models of complex human conditions, such as mental illnesses or addictions, are actually quite weak, they only very roughly approximate the human condition” (Leshner, 2004). Essentially, the difference in mental complexity between non-human primates and humans is like that of a petri-dish sample and a whole organism. So, while premature testing in humans can have catastrophic results, if we are going to want the possible benefits, we will have to take the necessary

Show More