In article <8654-380A62C3-61 at storefull-174.iap.bryant.webtv.net> ,
Y-chat at webtv.net writes:
>The article Matt Jones posted about the "humane" treatment of the cats
>used in this research project is compellingly macabre,the cats were
>obviously also "humanely" euthanized after the research was completed.
>It is possible that there was in this research somewhere a motive given
>for the clinical studies, i.e. to help other cats with visual problems?
>Or perhaps to help develop a new "robotic" toy cat?
>
Yes, in this particular case they were probably killed (while still
unconscious) at the end of the experiment. In plenty of other
experiments, electrodes are implanted chronically and the animal is
stitched up and allowed to recover. This way, recordings can be made from
a "behaving" animal, which yields very important information about how
neurons work during various behaviors. When this is done, close
attention is paid to the postoperative health of the animal. Antibiotics
and pain killers are used, just as they would be for a person.
In response to your question: "It is possible that there was in this
research somewhere a motive given for the clinical studies, i.e. to help
other cats with visual problems?", first of all it's not a clinical
study, it's a basic neurophysiology experiment. Second, yes, the motive
given was to increase our understanding of basic neurophysiology. Would
it make you feel any better if they said "We're going to destroy this
perfectly healthy cat so that we can help a blind cat?" or "...help a
blind person?". If that makes you feel better, then good, because it's
undoubtedly true, although the authors didn't say that (nor should they
have).
By the way, I never used the word "humane" as you misquote me in your
post. I said there was little or no suffering, which is correct.
Think about this for a second:
The point of the paper, for those of you who still haven't read it but
feel compelled to criticize it anyway, is that the experimenters made
recordings from a few neurons at the first relay stage of the visual
pathway, while playing movies of natural scenes to the (anesthetised)
cat. These recordings consist of lots of little spikes, or blips on an
oscilloscope. Neither you nor I could ever hope to just look at this
series of blips and "decode" from it what the cat was seeing. But that's
exactly what our brains are doing all the time (i.e., decoding the
blips). We just don't know how they do it. The point of this paper was
to show that you can mathematically decode these blips and "reconstruct"
the image that the cat saw. This is not just using the cat's lens to see
the world, this is showing that you understand part of the secret code by
which the cat's retinal and geniculate neurons represent the information
that comes into the eye as changing patterns of light.
Ok, now think about this:
There are plenty of people who don't see very well because of problems in
their eyes, but whose neurons in the rest of their visual system may work
just fine. If we know the code that those neurons speak in, then we
should in principle be able to take a camera, feed its pixels into an
"encoding" device, and use that device to directly stimulate the neurons
that would normally be carrying that information up to the rest of the
brain. The person would then be able to "see" even though their eyes
still didn't work. This isn't going to happen tomorrow, but if it ever
does happen it will be -because- these scientists (and others) did this
particular experiment (and others like it).
So there's an obvious benefit to us that someone is doing these
experiments. Whether that benefit overcomes our collective karmic burden
that we allowed cats to be used for that purpose is...well...is an
interesting question, and I don't know the answer.
Cheers,
Matt Jones
PS:
Again, here's the full reference. If anyone else is interested, I'd much
rather participate in a thread about the methods and results of the paper
than in one about whether it ever should have been done or not (a
thoroughly moot point).
Garrett B. Stanley, Fei F. Li, and Yang Dan
Reconstruction of Natural Scenes from Ensemble Responses in the Lateral
Geniculate Nucleus
J. Neurosci. 1999 19: 8036-8042.
and here's some related ones:
Yang Dan, Joseph J. Atick, and R. Clay Reid
Efficient Coding of Natural Scenes in the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus:
Experimental Test of a Computational Theory
J. Neurosci. 1996 16: 3351-3362.
Markus Meister and Michael J. Berry II
The Neural Code of the Retina
Neuron 1999 22: 435450.
Iman H. Brivanlou, David K. Warland, and Markus Meister
Mechanisms of Concerted Firing among Retinal Ganglion Cells
Neuron 1998 20: 527539.
