Re:The sexes don’t feel pain the same way
by Balgair on Monday April 01, 2019 @11:05AM
(#19544008)
For the interested:
The NIH's change in requirements to include does/dams largely follows from the finding out of McGill [0] that showed male rats will change their pain tolerances in response to testosterone smells emitted by male researchers. That particular finding invalidated a LOT of pain research from a few decades past. There had been calls for a long time to include female rats in research, but the rodent estrus cycle is very difficult to deal with and control for, hence female absence from most rat studies. Bucks are very pheremonal and will also greatly change behavior when does are around, another confound to experiments. The McGill work was the straw that broke the camel's back and finally forced the change from the NIH.
The NIH's change in requirements to include does/dams largely follows from the finding out of McGill [0] that showed male rats will change their pain tolerances in response to testosterone smells emitted by male researchers. That particular finding invalidated a LOT of pain research from a few decades past. There had been calls for a long time to include female rats in research, but the rodent estrus cycle is very difficult to deal with and control for, hence female absence from most rat studies. Bucks are very pheremonal and will also greatly change behavior when does are around, another confound to experiments. The McGill work was the straw that broke the camel's back and finally forced the change from the NIH.
[0]https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/scent-man-23549...