{"id":15014,"date":"2025-02-21T01:37:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T16:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/?p=15014"},"modified":"2025-02-24T02:53:49","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T17:53:49","slug":"key-study-rats-in-an-fmri-brydges-et-al-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2025\/02\/21\/key-study-rats-in-an-fmri-brydges-et-al-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Study: Rats in an fMRI (Brydges et al., 2013)<\/br>A fun and fascinating study to highlight the Three Rs of animal research<\/font>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Animal experimentation is contentious. Some argue they\u2019re valuable and worthwhile, while others question their validity and ethicality. The fundamental issue with animal research is that animals cannot provide informed consent and most animals are euthanised at the end of the experiment. But what if researchers could use brain scanners on live rats so they didn’t have to kill them? That’s what happened in the following study.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to 2013, psychologists had used fMRI on rats, mice, pigeons and dogs. However, in all these studies the animals were anaesthetised. Remember in an fMRI you have to be perfectly still or the scan won’t work. Imagine trying to get a pigeon to sit still in an fMRI! This is why they prefer to knock them unconscious and scan there brains. Of course, this is a big issue because the whole point of fMRI is to see what’s happening in brain while performing actual tasks. This study trained the mice to get comfortable with the fMRI so they could perform the scans while they were awake.<\/p>\n

This study features in the chapter “Criminology” in\u00a0IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide (2nd Ed.)<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The harmless sound of a concierge bell can become a fear creating stimulus if it’s paired enough times with something scary.<\/p>\n

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To fully comprehend the following study, you need to understand fear conditioning<\/strong>, a type of classical condition (also called Pavlovian conditioning). Fear conditioning is when someone (or some animal) is taught over time to be afraid of something. I always demonstrate in class using a student in the front row (let’s call him Adam), a long stick and a concierge bell. If I ring the bell, nothing happens. Adam just sits there looking at me. Now I ring the bell and poke him in the ribs with the stick (not really, we pretend). He flinches, naturally. I make a buzzing sound as if I’m electrocuting him, too. It would work better if the stick gave a little shock, but I can’t do that because, well, ethics. We do this repeatedly: ring bell and poke ribs, ring bell and poke ribs. If you do this enough times, when I ring the bell Adam will flinch even without the stick. The harmless bell (a once neutral stimulus) has become a conditioned stimulus because he has learned to be afraid of it. He has developed a conditioned response. In animal studies, like this mouse fMRI one, they use lights or sounds and electrified cages that shock the animals feet.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/strong><\/p>\n