does all psychiatric/biological research involve experimenting on mice?

Question

i'm trying to decide whether to go for an md/PhD program but I cannot imagine working in a lab full of mice even for medical endeavors. i don't have a problem with potentially messy human things, just rodents.

Answer 1

You have the wrong assumption. Most medical students don't get close to research. So why worry about mice. I suggest you seek counseling.

Answer 2

In neuroscience we use rats more often than mice ;-)

I'm assuming that's not what you want either. I cannot speak to the clinical M.D. side, but on the research Ph.D. side, rodents are extremely helpful tools. Sure, you can do some useful non-invasive or minimally-invasive experiments with human volunteer subjects. But some important research is necessarily life-threatening to the subject, and those experiments just can't be done on humans for obvious reasons. You need animal models: mammals that are easy to work with and biologically similar to humans. Mice and rats are often the solution to that problem.

Answer 3

No. All kinds of subjects are used. Mice are used a lot because they are cheap to maintain and easy to manipulate. Plus they make excellent subjects for showing to cameras because they behave like people's basest instincts but without looking like people so it's not as creepy as watching monkeys.

Answer 4

If mice bother you, then you can always work with flies. Mice and flies are the two most common subjects in experiments.

Answer 5

Miracetum (piracetum) the memory increasing magic drug was tested on mice to prove its efficacy. Lab results were good. And the drug does not improve memory. Discontinued

Answer 6

Read all the books in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to find out the truth about mice.....

It will amaze you...