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Experimenting on animals to try to understand human pain disorders is largely ineffective—and more humane alternatives exist. © istock.com |
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Trying to understand human pain has been an elusive journey for scientists who study how conditions like irritable bowel syndrome and chronic back pain affect the human body. Yet despite the amount of research that’s been done on the subject, safe and effective treatments are still hard to find. That’s in part because pain researchers still rely heavily on using laboratory animals, even though animals often do not accurately replicate the process of human pain.
In response, a panel of British pain research experts from academia and industry has recommended that the focus of pain research be shifted away from animals and towards non-animal alternatives that could allow growth and progress in the field, as well as provide more humane methods of researching pain.
The panel took part in a workshop entitled "Focus on Alternatives" arranged by organizations that fund alternatives to animal experiments. The results, conclusions and recommendations of the workshop were published in the August 15 issue of Neuroimage.
The workshop report noted that "recent scientific and technical developments, particularly in human neuroimaging, offer the potential to replace some animal procedures in the study of human pain." Neuroimaging consists of noninvasive techniques to image the brain, such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).
Other alternatives that could be effectively used in combination with neuroimaging include in vitro cell and tissue cultures, epidemiological studies, and approaches based on information gathered from the human genome.
Neuroimaging and other forms of imaging can also be used as alternatives to painful procedures performed on animals in other areas of research or as tools to assess the pain that animals are experiencing.
"We have a long way to go in understanding how to assess and alleviate pain in animals themselves," said Kathleen Conlee, director of The HSUS's Pain & Distress Campaign. "Therefore, it isn't surprising that these experts have found that studying animal models to understand pain in humans is largely ineffective. Now we need a major shift in approach and must now press for the implementation of more effective non-animal alternatives.
