Lieu 1

Daniel Lieu
Dr. Haas
Writing 39C
April 24, 2016
Rat Grief [HCP]
Through the years, scientists have spent countless hours researching and studying
animals, ultimately leading to developments on the similarities and differences to
humans. The fields of study among animals are so broad, from brain function, cognition,
memory, molecular biology, and even animal grief. In the more recent years, one field of
study that is more heavily emphasized is the animal grief. Scientists have been asking
whether or not animals, like rats, go through this same phenomenon like humans, how
grief functions in animals in comparison to humans, what they grieve about, and much
more. The results and observations throughout the past years have led to groundbreaking
conclusions in the study of rat grief in addition to the growing popularity of scientists
who made these discoveries, like Dr. Ackerman, Dr. Selve, and Pankseep.
Towards the beginning of developments regarding the brain, scientists began
asking questions like, How do animals grieve? lead to one of the first big publications
regarding how animals grieve. On January 1, 1984, the Committee for the Study of
Health Consequences of Stress and Bereavement published on the National Academy of
Science, Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care, an extremely intricate book
with the findings of over 100 scientists who study grief. Studies on humans in terms of
brain developments were not widely done, but rather the primary means of research were
monkeys, dogs, and most commonly, rats. Rats played a key role in scientific study due

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to the physiological and biological resemblance to humans (National Cancer Institute). In
the first developments of grief in animals, scientists from the Psychosomatic Medicine
Research Group in 1983 made one of the biggest observations in rat grief, and overall,
animal grief. Sharon Ackerman, a former researcher on proteins folding, and current
professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine, led the research group. Her
team took two groups: a control group and an experimental group. The control groups
were adult parent rats that bred young rats. The infants were allowed to remain with the
parents throughout the entire life development. The experimental group differed in the
sense that the infants were allowed to be with the parents for x amount of days, and
then were separated and their behavior was analyzed. What the scientists observed led
them to believe that animals may have the capability and natural reaction to grieve as
humans do. The infant rats separated from their parents were observed to suffer from a
lower immune competence and even appeared to be insomniac with a reduction in REM
(Rapid Eye Movement) cycle when they are able to sleep (Institute of Medicine
Committee). Dr. Ackerman and her research group essentially pioneered one of the
biggest developments in the study of animal grief through her observations of rats.
While it may seem that rats were the primary means of studying grief, humans
were actually studied for years prior to the understanding that rats were physiologically
and biologically similar. Understanding the results during human testing is critical to
understanding how scientists, taking the known data from human grief studies and the
observations from Dr. Ackermans group, were able to conclude that rats and other
animals go through grief. The biggest development for human study on grief was made
by Hans Selye, a neurophysiologist who specifically focused on grief and stress. He was

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a medical doctor, Ph.D, doctorate of science, and professor and director of the Institut de
Medcine et de Chirurgie experimentales in the University of Montreal, Canada. Dr. Selye
took parents who had terminally ill children and observed them up until the death of their
child. At the immediate death, she noticed that the body released a specific chemical
hormone that was not released prior to experiencing this grief. She called the hormone
adrenocorticotrophin (ACTH), which when released, caused the body to produce
cortisone to counter the effect of ACTH. As the grief progresses in the participants life,
he noted that cortisone continued to be produced in the blood and exceeded normal levels
by ten fold. When cortisone is released, he compared it to the normal human and found
that it caused the immune system to be defective by shutting off the white blood cells
necessary to fight infection (Selve 476). These observations that led to the conclusion by
Dr. Selve allowed our understanding of grief to not only be observed on a physical level,
but now also on a microscopic and biological level.
Many years after the shift to rats for biological testing, scientists look at the
research regarding ACTH levels and cortisone in humans linked to grief, and compared it
to rats discovering were not too different from our animal counterpart. Understanding
that we have certain hormones that are excreted when we experience grief was the first
precursor to understanding if animals had it as well. As a result, Delia M. Vazquez, a
neuroscientist and professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Center of Human Growth
and Development drove the current understanding of rat grief in 1997 through her
research of radiolabeled ACTH. Upon finding a way to radiolabel ACTH with a
fluorescence to be analyzed, she took infant and adult rats to compare their levels of
ACTH released when separated. At a young age, if the rat is separated, there is a gradual

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release of ACTH and cortisol is released as a response, a phenomenon very similar to
humans reaction to grief. Throughout the 10 day experiment, it was observed that there
was a prolonged ACTH elevation, which is also similar. The difference is that humans
experience a spike in ACTH and cortisol, while rats experienced a gradual release,
though both were observed to be caused by a direct event leading to stress and grief
(Vzquez 1). Her conclusions led to her research publication by the Journal of
Neuroendocrinology discussing the similar effects of grief in rats to humans.
The development for rat grief didnt just stop at understanding that they do grieve,
but extended beyond the scope of just grief and into new horizons within that topic,
like depression and the brains emotional networks. A recent scientist who is most
notable for his most recent developments on depression is named Jaak Pankseep, a
neuroscientist, psychobiologist, and chairman for the Animal Well-Being Science for the
Department of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology, and Physiology at
Washington State Universitys Veterinarian School. His primary research in 2010, where
he published Affective neuroscience of the emotional BrainMind led to many accepted
conclusions regarding depression, a grief that extends beyond normal grief, but rather
involves emotional networks that are affected. He noted that while grief is a result of
hormonal changes in the body, depression is rather a sustained dysphoria with a sustained
hormonal change that did not revert back to a normal state (Panksepp 1). How were these
conclusions reached? Through studying the effects of animal hormonal changes and
effects, but more specifically in rats. The ability for rats to be able to experience these
hormonal changes being sustained in their system in addition to humans experiencing the
same effects during depression simply shows that rats do experience grief, and not just

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experience grief in their own unique way, but in a way that has a striking resemblance to
the way that humans experience grief.
Lastly, one thing that is associated with animal grief is pain. Both rats and
humans have nerve endings that are stimulated by pain in the tissues, like cutting,
crushing, or burning, called nociceptors. In 1906, a scientist named Dr. Sherrington
established noriceptors in humans, which led to further restrictions on human testing that
involve any noriceptor nerves (National Research Council). In 2013, scientists from the
University of Sao Paulo in Brazil published their findings of noriceptor stimuli regarding
rats that resulted in painful experiences in the nerves of rats (Sanada S56).
The five large research developments regarding rat mourning and their ability to
mourn has led many begin comparing and contrasting the true differences and similarities
to humans beyond the physiological observations. Before the 1900s, many believed that
rats and humans differed to the furthest extent based off of physiological observations
that they do not experience emotions and are autonomous. However in the first large
publication, Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care, that contains a
compilation of the scientific works over the years has led many to believe otherwise. Dr.
Ackerman and her research group pioneered the way into changing the perception of rats
in regards to not experiencing grief when rats separated from their parents as a newborn
suffered from an impact REM sleep cycle in addition to a weakened immune system. Dr.
Hans Selve furthered the developments of Dr. Ackerman through his research on human
stress and grief in humans by studying rats. He observed that rats released
adrenocorticotrophin (ACTH), while humans also do as well. This furthered in closing

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the gap between human and rat grief, helping to allow scientists to conclude rats do
experience grief.
The developments are eventually leading to the conclusion that rats do experience
grief, but does it also change the way that scientists are thinking about using rats to test in
the laboratory? The only governing law regarding the use of animals in research and
testing in the Animal Welfare Act published in 1966 by the US Department of
Agriculture, which has not changed since (www.gpo.gov). However since the time that is
has been published, there were many extremely large developments in the understanding
that animals are very similar to humans in regards to how both experience grief,
especially in the development of the ACTH hormone. In comparison, human subjects for
experimental testing is protected by the US Department of Health & Human Services,
stating that each human subject has to be subjected to a review by the Institutional
Review Board and even obtain informed consent (www.hhs.gov). The recent
developments regarding rats similarity, not only physiologically in anatomy, but also
biologically through emotional triggers for grief should lead to a reconsideration of the
old 1966 Animal Welfare Act.
As one can see, there have been many extremely important developments
regarding rat grief. Scientists are on the verge of being able to conclude unanimously that
rats do experience grief based off the science of Dr. Ackerman, Dr. Hans Selve, and the
giant publication by the Committee for the Study of Health Consequences of Stress and
Bereavement summarizing the recent findings in the past century regarding rat grief. By
doing so, it questions the moral of using animals for testing, especially when looking at

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the fact publications for rat grief were in majority, made after the establishment of the
Animal Welfare Act.

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Bibliography
"Animal Welfare Act." Animal Welfare Act. US. Department of Agriculture. Web. 24
Apr. 2016.
Committee on Recognition and Alleviation of Pain in Laboratory Animals, Institute For
Laboratory Animal
Research, Division on Earth and Life Studies, and
National Research Council. Recognition and Alleviation of Pain in Laboratory
Animals. National Academies, 2009. Print.
"Information on Protection of Human Subjects in Research Funded or Regulated by U.S.
Government." HHS.gov. US Department of Human & Health Services. Web. 24
Apr. 2016.
Panksepp, Jaak. "Affective Reflections and Refractions within the BrainMind." NEJP
Netherlands Journal of Psychology 64.4 (2008): 128-31. Print.
"Research Uses for Rats ." Research Uses for Rats . National Cancer Institute. Web.
24 Apr. 2016.
Sanada, L., K. Sato, E. Carmo, N. Machado, K. Sluka, and V. Fazan. "Noxious Stimuli in
the Neonatal Period in Rats Can Cause Important Peripheral Nervous System
Alterations That Persist on Adults in a Sex-dependent Manner." The Journal of
Pain 14.4 (2013). Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Selye, Hans. The Physiology and Pathology of Exposure to Stress; a Treatise Based on
the Concepts of the General-adaptation-syndrome and the Diseases of
Adaptation. Montreal: Acta, 1950. Print.
Vzquez, Delia M., Mara I. Morano, and Huda Akil. "Kinetics of Radiolabeled
Adrenocorticotropin Hormone in Infant and Weanling Rats." Journal of
Neuroendocrinology 9.7 (2003): 529-36. Web.