Are Animal Experiments Justified? - Issue 72: Quandary

The rat sat still in the middle of her cage, moving only in response to my touch, and even then only as if in slow-motion. My subject, GRat66, was a few months old, and except for her long bare tail, fit neatly into my palm a few minutes earlier, when I injected a few drops of a potent opiate under her skin, near the belly. Now, her beady black eyes bulged as she faded into an opiate stupor. I was preparing to implant minuscule electrodes into the rat's brain. The opiate would serve as an analgesic before, during, and after the surgery. It was the fall of 2018 and I was hoping the results of the surgery would help answer some questions that had been tormenting me as I embarked on the sixth year of my Ph.D. in neuroscience. How do the parts of the brain controlling movement interact with those responsible for visual sensation? Why do neurons in the visual areas jolt to action when an animal moves, even in the dark?