FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The Care of Use of Animals in Biomedical Research

  8. Why Use Animals?
  9. What are the Most Commonly Used Animal Models?
10. Which Animals are Studied for their Unique Characteristics?
11. Where Would We Be Without Animal Research?
12. Man’s Best Friend ... and Research Partner
13. How Many and What Kinds of Animals are Used in Biomedical Research?
14. How are Animals Used in Biomedical Research Cared For?
15. What Laws, Regulations and Guidelines Govern Animal Research?

FAQ — General Questions (1-7)

---

9. WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMONLY USED ANIMAL MODELS?
(Taken from Unit II, Chapter 2, of the Rx for Science Literacy teacher manual.)

Animal: Cat
System/Condition: Auditory
Why Is It Studied?: Like humans, cats have very well-developed hearing systems and brain mechanisms for hearing. They can be trained to respond to many behavioral cues given through auditory stimuli. Cats also experience naturally occurring hearing defects and are susceptible to environmentally induced defects, as are humans.

Animal: Primate
System/Condition: Immune
Why Is It Studied?: Primates possess striking immunological similarities to humans. They are susceptible to similar diseases and often react to the same infectious agents as humans.

Animal: Dog
System/Condition: Cardiovascular
Why Is It Studied?: A dog’s cardiovascular system is structured quite similarly to humans. They suffer from many inherited cardiovascular defects that affect humans. Since they possess inherited defects nearly identical to those seen in humans, hematology, the study of the blood, is also practiced using dogs.

Animal: Dog
System/Condition: Endocrine
Why Is It Studied?: Dogs naturally experience diabetes like humans. Diabetes can also be easily induced in dogs to aid research. In addition, dogs share other diabetes-induced deficits such as glaucoma, that occur in humans.

Animal: Mouse
System/Condition: Aging
Why Is It Studied?: Mice age 30 times more rapidly than humans, with several body systems declining with age in the same manner as those systems do in humans. Genetic composition and environmental conditions can be precisely and easily duplicated and controlled — a vital consideration in interpreting data.

Animal: Rat
System/Condition: Aging
Why Is It Studied?: Rats are available in a number of purpose-bred strains and have been the focus of intensive physiological and biochemical research. Rats show major, spontaneously developing and age-related damage in most major systems of the body that commonly are seen in humans. However, in rats these deficits occur faster and are easily studied during a rat’s lifetime.

return to top