9 Brain ‘Studies’ Proving Experimenters Need their brains Tested

7. Mouse Brain Experiments at the Cleveland Clinic
The victims: Infant mice use ultrasonic sounds to call to their mothers, and female mice sing to one another to help distinguish individuals, much as a human might use their voice to say, “You look familiar. Where do I know you from?” Mice are intelligent, social, and affectionate and will even reciprocate a massage from humans by lovingly grooming their fingers. They become emotionally attached to one another and fiercely protect their families. These bright, curious animals are content to spend hours exploring and playing.
The experiment: Experimenters at the Cleveland Clinic call it a “cranial window,” but what they mean is a hole drilled into the skull exposing the brain and covered with glass. PETA revealed that experimenters suction out portions of mice brains to expose the hippocampus and then place a glass coverslip over the exposed portion. They then glue a stainless steel “head cap” onto the mouse’s skull. The mouse receives pain relief only on the day of the surgery and the next day.

The excuse: These painful, invasive experiments are apparently done to monitor what happens to “the brain condition.” However, the “structure, function, and behavior” of the mouse brain has little relevance to the human brain. In a recent Reuters article on the BRAIN Initiative, Eli Lilly’s vice president of neuroscience research, Dr. Christer Nordstedt, said, “We’ve been handicapped by the fact that we have been studying diseases in animals that don’t really exist in animals. Mice don’t get depression. They don’t get schizophrenia. They don’t get Alzheimer’s disease.”
8. Mice and Rat Brain Experiments Commissioned by the National Football League Foundation, Formerly Known as NFL Charities
The victims: Rats are natural students who excel at learning and understanding concepts and are at least as capable as dogs are of thinking about things and figuring them out. They have excellent memories, and although their eyesight is poor, once they learn a route, they never forget it. Much like us, if they don’t have companionship, they can become lonely and sad. Mice and rats can recognize their names and respond when called, and if rats aren’t forced to live inside a dirty cage, their skin has a very pleasant perfume-like scent.
The experiment: These tests have involved repeatedly slamming heavy weights into rats’ heads to create brain and spinal cord injuries and skull fractures as well as cutting open the heads of mice and delivering crushing blows to cause traumatic brain injuries. The experiments are crudely designed to recreate injuries on the football field.

For years, the NFL has quietly funded horrific and deadly sports-injury experiments on dogs, mice, rats, and other animals at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California–Los Angeles, the University of Notre Dame, and other schools and private laboratories.
The excuse: To prevent and treat injuries sustained by NFL players. But bashing in animals’ heads doesn’t prevent injuries on the football field, as studies have shown that they don’t accurately replicate the complex injuries sustained by football players—and data and treatments derived from brain-injury experiments on animals have repeatedly failed to help human patients.