Mice React Differently To Human Males Compared To Females

[Mercedes Benzene]

A new paper out of Nature Methods details the findings that olfactory exposure to male animals (including humans) can cause a change in baseline responses in behavioral testing. 

 

There have been numerous studies to come out in the recent past revealing some big problems with the way that animal studies are conducted, but this most recent news is, as far as I know, something that hasn't been talked about before. These findings potentially call into question decades of results of animal testing. 

 

Thoughts?

 

More reviews from Science; Washington Post

[Turtle]

:hi:Good catch Mercedes. What's not to love about a study of studies. While this should prompt some rethinking, I like their ending line in the article about being able to change the bath water without throwing out the baby.

[scifiohmy]

How interesting! Scientific studies like these are 'discovering' new phenomena everyday; it's wild to think that this may very well have been going on the whole time and no one ever knew about it. I wonder, on the flip side, if being exposed only to females and not males has the opposite effect.

[Celestia]

Wow, how interesting! It is rather amazing to think of how this could have been affecting studies for so many years. And that if this is present for mice, what other animals have been affected by this in the testing environment?