Pain Oriented Studies Essay

Ethics of Pain Oriented Studies

The implementation of vertebrates as model organisms in experimentations is universally controversial, particularly when the aforementioned research is explicitly pain oriented. Concern over the wellbeing of stereotypical lab animals such as rats and mice are not misplaced, as long term exposure to pain has high risks of inducing greater levels of anxiety, alcohol abuse, and disturbing altercations of previously established behaviors (Anand, 1999); the risk to develop chronic pain from periodic acute pain is also increased over long term exposure (Al-Chaer, 2000). These studies demonstrate the ramifications of pain related studies; both short term responses to pain and the potential developments of long term
As mice and rats are good model organisms, due to their ability to be accommodated as a semi-reliable replica of human physiology, they can serve as a method in understanding human conditions that could not be legally conducted on human bodies; of which the results obtained from the study can be used to advance knowledge and potentially treatments. Chronic pain, for example, is a significant contributor to health care costs (Casey, 1989); indicating that chronic pain is a major dilemma to the current human populace, of which researchers should take actions is attempting to resolve. However, inducing chronic pain in humans would be highly unethical; therefore, the use of a model organism is a necessary component in research. The need for pain oriented studies, where there is no procedure for a specific medication or other attempt to alleviate pain besides the required self-administered painkillers (Zimmerman, 1983), are to serve as a template, or baseline for the pain related behavior of the model. Having a broad understanding of pain related behavior can serve in studies that are attempting to find solutions to chronic or acute pain, and can identify a change in an animal’s