By Sarah, Senior, Fountain Hills High School

When I started my research for this essay contest, I truly thought that most of the information I would find would be about cosmetic or household product testing. I could not have imagined the extent of animal research in medicine. It plays such an integral part in our everyday lives; from our very existence to the most extreme medical emergencies; knowledge gained through animal research saves lives or improves them drastically every day. This knowledge has both affected me and my close family. Without it, I can’t say where I’d be.

My grandfather has probably benefited most from biomedical research using animals. In the last ten years, he has suffered from a heart attack, has had quadruple bypass surgery, and had both knees replaced. He is also diabetic and takes more medications than I can count. Without research with animals, especially dogs, he would not be alive right now. In fact, dogs are probably his best friend.

Researchers used dogs to develop a way to stop and restart a heartbeat and to develop the heart-lung machine, both of which are vital to heart surgery. They also perfected surgery techniques for procedures such as coronary bypass surgery, artificial heart valve insertion, and pacemaker implantation. Dogs are also used to evaluate anesthesia equipment and methods, which is very important, especially to patients.

My grandfather’s artificial knees were also developed first in dogs, and then used in humans. He wouldn’t be able to walk without them. Dogs were also instrumental in the discovery of insulin and that diabetics lack insulin. Treatments were developed using dogs and cats, and future treatments are still in development. Thanks to this research, both of my grandfathers no longer suffer from diabetes, they are living healthy lives with it. And my grandfathers aren’t the only ones who benefited in big ways from animal research.

Last spring my dog, PJ, was bitten by a rattlesnake. He’s a little guy, only about 20 pounds, but he’s a fighter. We got him to a vet, who treated him with anti-venom, something that wouldn’t have been discovered and refined without animal research.

After that went to work, his blood pressure was very unstable, so he was pumped full of medication to keep him alive. He made it through the night, but when we got home, we found out he was very anemic. He was on an IV and treated with antibiotics for about a week before he was well enough to come home again. Like I said, he’s a fighter.

Luckily, the venom only destroyed muscle tissue and he still has full use of his leg, but without these procedures, developed with animal research, he would not be around today. And because he’s such a geeky dog, he also suffers from allergies and needs medications and special shampoos to deal with them. Animal research was necessary to develop these treatments too. Plus, there’s all the vaccinations and shots he needs too; the list just goes on and on.

I used to think that veterinarians just adapted human medicines and procedures to use on animals. I’m sure that’s partly true, but it seems like a lot of these things were developed for animals first for research and then applied to humans. They’re just being brought out into the public eye now for public use.

I truly couldn’t image in my life without my grandparents or my puppy or the rest of my family. Without this research, neither one of my grandfathers would be alive right now to watch me graduate or witness any of life’s little miracles we take for granted every day. For some of my family members, the research came too late.

My grandmother was born too early to benefit from animal research. She contracted polio in the 1930s and it crippled her left hand and arm. She no longer has any use of that hand. It’s hard to imagine that something like that could’ve affected me if the vaccine hadn’t been developed through research using mice and primates. It sounds ridiculous, but I take for granted walking around every day and not contracting mumps, measles, the plague or polio.

I’ve never been through a trauma or had a deadly disease in which animal research saved my life. I benefit from it because the people around me are still around, and I still get to see their faces everyday. And I now know just how much I owe to animal research; my entire family and my friends have all benefited from this. How could you not benefit from medical advancements?

By Maria, Sophomore, Xavier College Prep. High School

The grandfather of my memories is a vivid, articulate man, a man who charmed and stormed among adults, suppressible by no one and no fear. With his grandchildren, he was stolid and solid, the Confucian model of a man, and that was solace when I was a little girl. I did not know then, that a stroke would cripple my grandfather, strip away his motility and speech ability--even his proud upright bearing so graceful and easy after years of tai chi training--leaving hanging limbs and sealed thoughts.

A stroke is a cerebrovascular attack, resulting in the temporary or permanent impairment of vital brain tissue. Following a severe stroke, a survivor encounters paralysis and aphasia, the loss of motor function and speaking ability regained only through research-developed rehabilitation techniques.(1) The stroke attacked my grandfather in his left lobe, rendering his right arm and leg stiff and intractable to his will.

A series of essential studies involving monkeys, conducted in 1957, tested techniques for overcoming such "learned nonuse" of disabled limbs after strokes. Researcher Edward Taub freed the motor nerve of test monkeys from sensory components by permanently severing the dorsal root of their brain in a process called deafferentation. The resultant inability to use the deafferented limb is analogous to the loss of activity in a stroke-affected limb in humans. The premise of the experiment was that physical disabilities after strokes are largely encouraged by motivational and learning factors. (2,4)

In the initial study examining unilateral deafferentation, monkeys were seated in restraining chairs supplied with electric shock. To avoid the intense, 3.5-second shock, monkeys displayed forced movement of the right deafferented arm. The left, intact arm and neck moved minimally because they were secured to a restraint board. Twenty trials occurred each session to aid in behavioral conditioning, with increased motivational level, and simple required motor function. Within nine weeks all preoperatively trained monkeys were able to respond successfully to the shock stimulus. These trials demonstrated the capacity for impaired monkeys to adopt a conditioned response (CR), to counter learned nonuse after a cerebrovascular attack.

After the completion of the first trial, straight jackets were applied to six monkeys, leaving only the single affected right arm free. Five of the six monkeys made use of their free, disabled limb to reach outside their cage and draw food towards themselves. This purposive movement of the affected extremity ceased, however, immediately following removal of the restraining jacket (4). The result of the study emphasized the need for gradual learning and training of limbs before the unforced use of disabled extremities. After the freeing of dorsal roots for joint disability in bilateral deafferentation, monkeys used their affected limbs even in free situations, stressing the greater motivational force of greater impairment (4).

The findings of Taub’s studies on monkeys aided in establishing simple methods for provoking use of single, deafferented limbs. The advised treatment included prolonged, impersonal restraint of the intact limb combined with a maximized motivational level. Repetitive training was essential to obtain a conditional response. Furthermore, behavioral objectives of increasing difficulty were critical, with a flexible amount of improvement (4). Modern rehabilitation techniques employ the basic behavioral patterns determined in animal studies such as that of Edward Taub, Ph.D., in 1957.

Thanks to such tests, flaccid, hanging limbs and loss of perceptual skill did not remain with my grandfather. They were shed with the application of rehabilitative massage, regular exercise, and repetitive training (3). My grandfather’s affected limbs regained nearly all of their previous dexterity, only the remnants of aphasia marring his rehabilitation. He returned, a vivid grandfather, evocative forever of strength and resilience.

1. Ancowitz, Arthur, M.D. Strokes and Their Prevention. New York: Nostrand Reinhold, 1975.

2. Barton, Lisa, and Steven Wolf. "Learned Nonuse in the Hemiplegic Upper Extremity." Advances in Stroke Rehabilitation. Stoneham: Butterworth- Heinemann, 1993.

3. Cox, Benjamin. Care and Rehabilitation of the Stroke Patient. Springfield: Thomas, 1973.

4. Taub, Edward. "Somatosensory Deafferentation Research with Monkeys: Implications for Rehabilitation Medicine." Behavioral Psychology in Rehabilitation Medicine: Clinical Applications. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1980.

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