Myopic scientists
fail to consider the
physiology of desperation
Studies done by Professor Bruce Alexander in the 1970’s shed significant light on the problems of drug addiction, but the results have scarcely altered society’s view of addictive drugs. In simplest terms, Dr. Alexander found that single rats, housed in solitary cages would consume addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine more or less nonstop, but rats housed in a socially complete environment with other rats, toys and adequate space, had little interest in the addictive drugs, even after being deliberately forced into physical dependence. These experiments, known as the “Rat Park” studies, really brought into focus the importance of emotional distress in the mechanism of addiction. Rats are intensely social creatures, and housing them in solitary confinement is totally at odds with their natural inclinations and needs. The results of these studies have met with a great deal of resistance, despite their important implications, and furthermore, their significant implications for other kinds of biomedical research have never been explored:
Human beings subject to solitary confinement frequently report that it is a severe form of of torture. There is a great deal of evidence that severe emotional distress has measurable physiologic consequences, including hormonal alterations, cardiovascular effects, and metabolic changes, to name a few. Most animal research is performed on highly social animals subject to chronic solitary confinement. Can we generalize the results of studies done on animals in severe chronic emotional distress to normal healthy human beings? The Rat Park studies should have radically altered our view of addictive drugs, but it should have also radically altered our view of solitary confinement in social creatures.
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