Animal farm
2014; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 506; Issue: 7486 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/506005a
ISSN1476-4687
Tópico(s)Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
ResumoWORLD VIEW China's arable land is in need of greater protection p.7 MONARCH Fewer butterflies flutter by on annual migration p.10 Animal farmEurope's policy-makers must not buy animal-rights activists' arguments that addiction is a social, rather than a medical, problem.D rug addiction is a disease.Images of the brains of addicts show alterations in regions crucial to learning and memory, judgement and decision-making, and behavioural control.Drugs imitate natural neurotransmitters, resulting in false or abnormal messages being sent around neural circuits.The brain's central reward system is overstimulated and flooded with dopamine.The brain adapts to this flood by turning down its ability to respond to dopamine -so addicts take more and more of the drug to push dopamine levels higher.Changes in other reward-system neurotransmitters such as glutamate can impair cognitive function.And the triggering of subconscious memory systems leads to conditioning, so environmental cues such as particular people or places set off uncontrollable cravings.None of that is particularly controversial, at least among scientists.So why do a growing number of politicians in Europe want to curtail research into addiction?Why would they deny their constituents the hope that they or their loved ones might one day be helped with the terrible burden of this disease?The answer is a troubling new front in the long battle over the use of animals in research (see page 24).Campaigners opposed to animal research have targeted addiction as the soft underbelly of political support for such work.Addiction is a social problem, they argue, not a medical one.And social problems are not solved by science, or by research on animals.That is a seductive message for politicians.Care and compassion for drug addicts is rarely a vote-winner.Care and compassion for animals is a sure thing.Many voters believe that funds are best focused on crushing drug barons and locking up dealers.Many also believe that addicts are at best weak-minded, at worst evil, and have only themselves to blame if their drug habits kill them.If the science of addiction can be questioned, then why bother pursuing medical cures based on scientific research?(For a taste of the muddled thinking on offer here, search the Internet for a recent 'debate' on addiction featuring the journalist Peter Hitchens and the actor Matthew Perry, broadcast by the BBC's currentaffairs programme Newsnight.)
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