如何评价哮喘动物模型

鉴于人体研究的局限性,动物模型在哮喘研究中起了无可替代的作用.尤其在阐明哮喘的病理生理和免疫学机制方面,动物研究可以给我们提供人体研究难以得到的结果.但是,由于人类与动物之间存在的差别,动物模型的研究结果应用于人类时还需要进一步评估.本文将对哮喘动物模型在哮喘研究中的作用及其局限性作一介绍.     

焦虑和抑郁动物模型的研究方法和策略

焦虑和抑郁障碍是严重威胁人们健康的精神疾病。焦虑和抑郁动物模型是通过一定的心理社会应激使动物产生明显的焦虑和抑郁情绪,模拟人类焦虑和抑郁障碍,以探讨其细胞、分子和基因水平机制。情绪障碍动物模型通常通过表面效度、结构效度和预测效度进行评价。目前的动物模型虽然存在一定的缺点,但已经为临床和科研提供了巨大帮助。     

心理韧性及其神经机制：来自非人类动物模型的证据

心理韧性是指个体对不幸、逆境或挫折等压力情形的有效适应。以非人类动物为模型的心理韧性研究一般改称心理韧性为“抗逆力”, 本文也将沿用“抗逆力”来区分不同物种的韧性研究。近年来采用非人类动物模型对抗逆力神经机制的探索取得了重要进展, 内侧前额叶、海马、奖赏环路等脑区及其投射均参与调控抗逆力的表现, 操控其神经环路的影响与所面对的压力形式有关, 并且高抗动物拥有特异性适应机制。鉴于人类研究的伦理及实验手段等原因, 抗逆力的研究将为人类的韧性研究提供重要参考。     

对中医实验动物模型的思考

众所周知 ,动物模型的研制对医学发展有着重要的意义。综观现代医学的发展 ,很大程度上取决于疾病动物模型的进展情况。实验动物模型对中医事业的发展同样取得了较大的成就 ,动物模型在中医科研中的作用已成为整个中医界的共识。然而 ,从目前中医动物模型的研究结果来看 ,对中医理论的发展远未起到显著的作用。因此 ,我们有必要对中医实验动物模型的研究进行更深入的探讨与思考。1　中医病因的辨证理解问题在目前许多疾病的动物模型复制研究中 ,多是按中医病因进行 ,其理论依据来自一些中医经典原文。但由于中医病因学内容的形成和发展受当…     

树鼩的社会挫败抑郁模型

创制理想的动物模型是突破抑郁症研究的技术难点之一。来自进化研究的证据提示, 树鼩属灵长类近缘的一种小型动物, 具有较为发达的神经系统和与人类相似的应激系统, 因而可能成为创制精神疾病行为模型的较佳选择。已有的研究表明, 树鼩社会挫败模型可能具有比啮齿类更好的表面效度、预测效度及结构效度。由于树鼩与人类的近缘关系, 对其抑郁行为的脑机制研究或药物评价可能更具潜在价值。但是, 该模型仍有待进一步利用、拓展和完善。     

人类胚胎干细胞的来源与伦理思考

人类胚胎干细胞研究的伦理问题较多,因此要思考胚胎干细胞的伦理问题。胚胎干细胞来源有四种：选择性流产的人类胚胎组织;治疗不孕症夫妇不需要的由体外受精产生的人类胚胎;由捐献者专门为研究所捐献的配子由体外受精产生的人类胚胎;由体细胞核移植技术将人体细胞核移植入人或动物的卵泡内产生人类胚胎或嵌合体胚胎。用不同胚胎来源研究干细胞产生的伦理问题不同,伦理的思考和结论也不同。     

正确看待人体低温保存

低温生物学是根据低温能减缓生物体生化活动速率的原理,采用各种技术有利于生物体长期保存的一门科学。它的研究范围较广,包括人体低温保存,低体温医学,食品冷藏,极地生物学,医疗,畜牧业等。其中人体低温保存作为一项新技术,受到自身条件的可行性、客观环境的特殊性和新技术本身的局限性制约,且与单纯的尸体冻存着本质的区别,人体低温保存有助于改善人们生活质量,延长人的寿命,从而推动整个人类生活方式的改变。因此,正     

听觉预测编码：对声音重复和变化的神经反应

预测编码被认为是脑与复杂环境交互的重要机制之一, 有效感知外界环境并对未来事件做出预测, 对个体生存有着至关重要的意义。人类大脑会基于感觉输入以迭代的方式持续优化表征外部环境的内部模型, 并不断预测接下来的感觉输入。以听觉模态为例, 人类及动物对声音重复和听觉变化的神经反应(如失匹配负波和刺激特异性适应)是大脑预测编码的重要体现, 表现为重复抑制和预测误差。结合人类和动物模型在此理论框架下开展跨物种研究将有助于加深我们对听觉加工, 甚至是大脑工作机制的认识。     

动物利用的道德正当性和伦理边界

从人类与动物生物属性与社会属性的差异、人类与动物在生态系统中的价值与价值秩序、人类与动物之间权利和义务关系三个角度可以厘清动物利用的道德正当性关系的基础;以目的正当性、手段正当性、结果正当性作为动物利用的道德正当性评价标准,能够为人类利用动物提供道德正当性辩护;以人类生存原则、人类基本利益优先原则和人类有限发展原则作为动物利用的伦理边界,可以为动物利用的实践提供明确而有效的理论支撑。     

医学动物实验的伦理和法律思考

医学动物实验对人类的生命科学发展起到重要作用。随着世界各国动物保护组织的建立,医学动物实验受到动物保护组织所倡导的动物权利论和动物福利法的严重挑战。通过介绍和阐述国外动物保护组织对医学动物实验的伦理观和法律观,进一步对我国由于医学动物实验所引发的伦理和法律问题进行研究和探讨。     

Human latent inhibition: Problems with the stimulus exposure effect

Latent inhibition (LI) is a startlingly simple effect in which preexposure of a stimulus without consequence retards subsequent responding to a stimulus–consequence relation. The effect was first demonstrated with Pavlovian conditioning in animals and was later suggested to be a marker of human psychopathology such as schizophrenia. Individual differences in LI has supported the continued use of animal models to understand human mental health. In this review, we ask whether there is sufficient evidence to support the continued application of LI from animal models to human psychopathology because of the weak evidence for LI in humans. There is considerable variability in the methods used to assess LI, sustaining different theoretical accounts of the effects observed, which differ from the accepted accounts of LI as demonstrated in animals. The review shows that although there have been many experiments testing human LI, none provide the necessary experimental controls to support the conclusion that retarded responding is caused simply by preexposure to a stimulus, as has been demonstrated with animal models. Establishing this conflict, we set out a framework for future research.     

Extrapolating from Laboratory Behavioral Research on Nonhuman Primates Is Unjustified

Conducting research on animals is supposed to be valuable because it provides information on how human mechanisms work. But for the use of animal models to be ethically justified, it must be epistemically justified. The inference from an observation about an animal model to a conclusion about humans must be warranted for the use of animals to be moral. When researchers infer from animals to humans, it’s an extrapolation. Often nonhuman primates are used as animal models in laboratory behavioural research. The target populations are humans and other nonhuman primates. I argue that the epistemology of extrapolation renders the use of nonhuman primates in laboratory behavioural research unreliable. If the model is relevantly similar to the target, then the experimental conditions introduce confounding variables. If the model is not relevantly similar to the target, then the observations of the model cannot be extrapolated to the target. Since using nonhuman primates as animal models in laboratory behavioural research is not epistemically justified, using them as animal models in laboratory behavioural research is not ethically justified.     

Are animal models predictive for humans?

It is one of the central aims of the philosophy of science to elucidate the meanings of scientific terms and also to think critically about their application. The focus of this essay is the scientific term predict and whether there is credible evidence that animal models, especially in toxicology and pathophysiology, can be used to predict human outcomes. Whether animals can be used to predict human response to drugs and other chemicals is apparently a contentious issue. However, when one empirically analyzes animal models using scientific tools they fall far short of being able to predict human responses. This is not surprising considering what we have learned from fields such evolutionary and developmental biology, gene regulation and expression, epigenetics, complexity theory, and comparative genomics.     

The development of expertise: animal models?

There is a continuing debate in the psychological literature between researchers who lean more toward learning theories of expertise development and those who lean more toward talent theories. However, the development of human expertise has not been open to direct experimental methods and will probably continue to elude experimentalists in the future. A promising alternative to direct experimental methods is to use human animal models, a possibility that researchers in expertise seem to have overlooked. However, there are studies in the animal behavior literature that address the development of nonhuman animal expertise without specifically referring to the topic as expertise. In the present study, the author discusses two nonhuman animal examples of expertise development that have been researched by ethologists. Nonhuman animal expertise development, unlike human expertise development, is subject to direct experimentation. The author thus recommends that researchers use nonhuman animals in their studies of expertise.     

The Development of Expertise: Animal Models?

There is a continuing debate in the psychological literature between researchers who lean more toward learning theories of expertise development and those who lean more toward talent theories. However, the development of human expertise has not been open to direct experimental methods and will probably continue to elude experimentalists in the future. A promising alternative to direct experimental methods is to use nonhuman animal models, a possibility that researchers in expertise seem to have overlooked. However, there are studies in the animal behavior literature that address the development of nonhuman animal expertise without specifically referring to the topic as expertise. In the present study, the author discusses two nonhuman animal examples of expertise development that have been researched by ethologists. Nonhuman animal expertise development, unlike human expertise development, is subject to direct experimentation. The author thus recommends that researchers use nonhuman animals in their studies of expertise.     

Review of Family Relational Stress and Pediatric Asthma: The Value of Biopsychosocial Systemic Models

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in children. Despite dramatic advances in pharmacological treatments, asthma remains a leading public health problem, especially in socially disadvantaged minority populations. Some experts believe that this health gap is due to the failure to address the impact of stress on the disease. Asthma is a complex disease that is influenced by multilevel factors, but the nature of these factors and their interrelations are not well understood. This paper aims to integrate social, psychological, and biological literatures on relations between family/parental stress and pediatric asthma, and to illustrate the utility of multilevel systemic models for guiding treatment and stimulating future research. We used electronic database searches and conducted an integrated analysis of selected epidemiological, longitudinal, and empirical studies. Evidence is substantial for the effects of family/parental stress on asthma mediated by both disease management and psychobiological stress pathways. However, integrative models containing specific pathways are scarce. We present two multilevel models, with supporting data, as potential prototypes for other such models. We conclude that these multilevel systems models may be of substantial heuristic value in organizing investigations of, and clinical approaches to, the complex social–biological aspects of family stress in pediatric asthma. However, additional systemic models are needed, and the models presented herein could serve as prototypes for model development.     

Origins of spatial, temporal and numerical cognition: Insights from comparative psychology

Contemporary comparative cognition has a large repertoire of animal models and methods, with concurrent theoretical advances that are providing initial answers to crucial questions about human cognition. What cognitive traits are uniquely human? What are the species-typical inherited predispositions of the human mind? What is the human mind capable of without certain types of specific experiences with the surrounding environment? Here, we review recent findings from the domains of space, time and number cognition. These findings are produced using different comparative methodologies relying on different animal species, namely birds and non-human great apes. The study of these species not only reveals the range of cognitive abilities across vertebrates, but also increases our understanding of human cognition in crucial ways.     

实验性近视模型变迁的回顾及其评价

近视由于其危害性成为科研热点,而近视模型的出现使其研究得到突破。模拟人类近视发展的不同模型无论在近视形成机制还是在物种选择,以及研究部位的变迁中均体现出哲学与科学相结合的过程。汲取不同类型的模型优点,并同人类原型予以比较,对解读近视本质和病因治疗有深远意义。     

Cognitive theories as reinforcement history surrogates: the case of likelihood ratio models of human recognition memory

B. F. Skinner (1977) once argued that cognitive theories are essentially surrogates for the organism's (usually unknown) reinforcement history. In this article, we argue that this notion applies rather directly to a class of likelihood ratio models of human recognition memory. The point is not that such models are fundamentally flawed or that they are not useful and should be abandoned. Instead, the point is that the role of reinforcement history in shaping memory decisions could help to explain what otherwise must be explained by assuming that subjects are inexplicably endowed with the relevant distributional information and computational abilities. To the degree that a role for an organism's reinforcement history is appreciated, the importance of animal memory research in understanding human memory comes into clearer focus. As Skinner was also fond of pointing out, it is only in the animal laboratory that an organism's history of reinforcement can be precisely controlled and its effects on behavior clearly understood.     

The widespread influence of the Rescorla-Wagner model

The theory of Pavlovian conditioning presented by Robert Rescorla and Allan Wagner in 1972 (the Rescorla-Wagner model) has been enormously important in animal learning research. It also has been applied in a variety of areas other than animal learning. We summarize the contribution of the Rescorla-Wagner model to research in verbal learning, social psychology, human category learning, human judgments of correlational relationships, transitive inference, color aftereffects, and physiological regulation. We conclude that there have been few models in experimental psychology as influential as the Rescorla-Wagner model.