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Articles 3901 - 3930 of 6318

Full-Text Articles in Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Itch Mediation And How It Differs From Pain, Nechama Rappaport Jan 2016

Itch Mediation And How It Differs From Pain, Nechama Rappaport

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Itch, to most, is a common nuisance, although when chronic it can negatively affect quality of life. It is obvious that itch is processed differently than pain, but how it differs is not clear. Researchers have been trying to find a path that specifically mediates itch. They have found that itch is mediated through at least two different pathways: histamine dependent and histamine independent. However, many of the mediators involved in the transduction of itch also mediate pain. Although some itch-specific neurons have been found, the majority of the pruritogenic neurons are also responsive to pain stimuli. Two theories that …

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Effects Of Vaccine Preservatives And Adjuvants On Childhood Neurodevelopment, Reut Raveh Jan 2016

Effects Of Vaccine Preservatives And Adjuvants On Childhood Neurodevelopment, Reut Raveh

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Parental concerns about the safety of childhood vaccinations began in the 1990’s and continue until today. A primary concern of many parents is whether the adjuvants and preservatives added to the vaccines have the potential to cause neurodevelopmental disorders in young children. An overview of various studies was done to determine if thimerosal affects childhood neurodevelopment with studies suggesting that thimerosal potentially causes neurodevelopmental disorders. However, some studies suggest the opposite. As a result it is impossible to conclude whether thimerosal affects childhood neurodevelopment. However, measures should be taken to remove thimerosal from the childhood vaccination schedule. Additionally, the studies …

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Cognitive Effects Of Breastfeeding, Abraham Englard Jan 2016

Cognitive Effects Of Breastfeeding, Abraham Englard

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

This paper explores the cognitive effects of breastfeeding through Intelligence Testing and Imaging Testing that compares IQ, success, and brain structure of individuals that were breastfed, formula fed, and both breastfed and formula fed. Intelligence studies available are widespread for all age groups and signify a causal relationship between breastfeeding and intelligence. However, imaging testing is not as extensive, but shows a strong correlation between cognitive development and breastfeeding. The mechanism of breast milk’s impact on cognitive development is at an exploratory phase, with a possibility that docosahexaenoic and arachidonic acids, along with other nutrients found in breast milk, contribute …

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Could Fish Feel Pain? A Wider Perspective, Yew-Kwang Ng Jan 2016

Could Fish Feel Pain? A Wider Perspective, Yew-Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

Key’s (2016) target article provides some strong arguments but also makes some logical mistakes. The arguments are not sufficient to support a definite conclusion that fish cannot feel pain. A multi-faceted perspective taking into account brain structure, chemical secretion in brain, animal behavior, and evolutionary biology may be useful and appears, at least in some aspects, to suggest the opposite conclusion from that of the target article.


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The Object Of Grief, Clark Glymour Jan 2016

The Object Of Grief, Clark Glymour

Animal Sentience

King’s new book is a wonderful collection of diverse anecdotes illustrating the variety of animal practices that are convincing illustrations of grief. Those who want scientific arguments for that conclusion should, however, read elsewhere.

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Why Fish Do Not Feel Pain, Brian Key Jan 2016

Why Fish Do Not Feel Pain, Brian Key

Animal Sentience

Only humans can report feeling pain. In contrast, pain in animals is typically inferred on the basis of nonverbal behaviour. Unfortunately, these behavioural data can be problematic when the reliability and validity of the behavioural tests are questionable. The thesis proposed here is based on the bioengineering principle that structure determines function. Basic functional homologies can be mapped to structural homologies across a broad spectrum of vertebrate species. For example, olfaction depends on olfactory glomeruli in the olfactory bulbs of the forebrain, visual orientation responses depend on the laminated optic tectum in the midbrain, and locomotion depends on pattern generators …

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Comparative Evolutionary Approach To Pain Perception In Fishes, Culum Brown Jan 2016

Comparative Evolutionary Approach To Pain Perception In Fishes, Culum Brown

Animal Sentience

Arguments against the fact that fish feel pain repeatedly appear even in the face of growing evidence that they do. The standards used to judge pain perception keep moving as the hurdles are repeatedly cleared by novel research findings. There is undoubtedly a vested commercial interest in proving that fish do not feel pain, so the topic has a half-life well past its due date. Key (2016) reiterates previous perspectives on this topic characterised by a black-or-white view that is based on the proposed role of the human cortex in pain perception. I argue that this is incongruent with our …

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No Evidence That Pain Is Painful Neural Process, Riccardo Manzotti Jan 2016

No Evidence That Pain Is Painful Neural Process, Riccardo Manzotti

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) claims that fish do not feel pain because they lack the neural structures that have a contingent causal role in generating and feeling pain in mammals. I counterargue that no conclusive evidence supports the sufficiency of any mammalian neural structure to produce pain. We cannot move from contingent necessity in mammals to necessity in every organism.

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On The Sentience Of Fish, Pentti O. Haikonen Jan 2016

On The Sentience Of Fish, Pentti O. Haikonen

Animal Sentience

Key’s (2016) target article, “Why fish do not feel pain,” is based on a moralistic fallacy where conclusions about natural conditions are drawn not from research and experiments, but from subjective moral views on how things should be. Moreover, the neurobiological findings purporting to show that fish do not feel pain are insufficient for drawing this conclusion.

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Lack Of Neocortex Does Not Imply Fish Cannot Feel Pain, Georg Striedter Jan 2016

Lack Of Neocortex Does Not Imply Fish Cannot Feel Pain, Georg Striedter

Animal Sentience

Some contemporary scientists are using comparative neurobiological data to argue that non-mammalian vertebrates have feelings, most notably of pain (e.g., Braithwaite, 2010; Mashour and Alkire, 2012), while Key (2016) uses the same general data to reach the opposite conclusion. In a nutshell, he argues that fish cannot feel pain because fish don’t have a neocortex, which humans need to consciously experience pain. I don’t know how these scientists can look at essentially the same data and reach such disparate conclusions, but I suspect that some of them have strong a priori beliefs and, therefore, view the data through differently tinted …

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Fighting Forms Of Expression, Paul J.B. Hart Jan 2016

Fighting Forms Of Expression, Paul J.B. Hart

Animal Sentience

Even though Key (2016) has done a very thorough job of assembling evidence showing that fish are unlikely to have the neurological capacity to be conscious and feel pain, there will still be a significant number of behavioural biologists who want to continue maintaining that fish do have consciousness and suffer from pain. In this commentary the reasons for people resisting the conclusions of the evidence are discussed. The reasons revolve around three aspects of the debate: the overblown respect humans have for the powers of consciousness in our day-to-day behaviour, the often used assumption that the possession of complex …

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Why Human Pain Can’T Tell Us Whether Fish Feel Pain, Victoria A. Braithwaite, Paula Droege Jan 2016

Why Human Pain Can’T Tell Us Whether Fish Feel Pain, Victoria A. Braithwaite, Paula Droege

Animal Sentience

In his target article, Key (2016) reviews the neuroanatomy of human pain and uses what is known about human pain to argue that fish cannot experience pain. We provide three reasons why the conclusions reached by Key are unsupported. They consider (i) why it is not sufficient to conclude that only human neural structures can process conscious pain, (ii) why an understanding of pain in humans and non-human animals needs to be based within a framework of consciousness, and (iii) evidence already exists that fish treated with noxious stimuli lose the ability to perform normal behaviours: This was a behavioral …

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Why Babies Do Not Feel Pain, Or: How Structure-Derived Functional Interpretations Can Go Wrong, Helmut Segner Jan 2016

Why Babies Do Not Feel Pain, Or: How Structure-Derived Functional Interpretations Can Go Wrong, Helmut Segner

Animal Sentience

The response to pain involves a non-conscious, reflexive action and a conscious perception. According to Key (2016), consciousness — and thus pain perception — depends on a neuronal correlate that has a “unique neural architecture” as realized in the human cortex. On the basis of the “bioengineering principle that structure determines function,” Key (2016) concludes that animal species such as fish, which lack the requisite cortex-like neuroanatomical structure, are unable to feel pain. This commentary argues that the relationship between brain structure and brain function is less straightforward than suggested in Key’s target article.

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Should Fish Feel Pain? A Plant Perspective, František Baluška Jan 2016

Should Fish Feel Pain? A Plant Perspective, František Baluška

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) claims fish that fish do not feel pain because they lack the necessary neuronal architecture: their responses to noxious stimuli, according to Key, are executed automatically without any feelings. However, as pointed out by many of his commentators, this conclusion is not convincing. Plants might provide some clues. Plants are not usually thought to be very active behaviorally, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Moreover, in stressful situations, plants produce numerous chemicals that have painkilling and anesthetic properties. Finally, plants, when treated with anesthetics, cannot execute active behaviors such as touch-induced leaf movements or rapid trap closures after localizing …

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Fish Lack The Brains And The Psychology For Pain, Stuart W.G. Derbyshire Jan 2016

Fish Lack The Brains And The Psychology For Pain, Stuart W.G. Derbyshire

Animal Sentience

Debate about the possibility of fish pain focuses largely on the fish’s lack of the cortex considered necessary for generating pain. That view is appealing because it avoids relatively abstract debate about the nature of pain experience and subjectivity. Unfortunately, however, that debate cannot be entirely avoided. Subcortical circuits in the fish might support an immediate, raw, “pain” experience. The necessity of the cortex only becomes obvious when considering pain as an explicitly felt subjective experience. Attributing pain to fish only seems absurd when pain is considered as a state of explicit knowing.

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An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather Jan 2016

An Invertebrate Perspective On Pain, Jennifer A. Mather

Animal Sentience

Although Key (2016) argues that mammals feel pain and fish do not, from an invertebrate perspective, it is obvious that the pain experience is shared by animals from a number of different animal groups.

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Going Beyond Just-So Stories, Brian Key Jan 2016

Going Beyond Just-So Stories, Brian Key

Animal Sentience

Colloquial arguments for fish feeling pain are deeply rooted in anthropometric tendencies that confuse escape responses to noxious stimuli with evidence for consciousness. More developed arguments often rely on just-so stories of fish displaying complex behaviours as proof of consciousness. In response to commentaries on the idea that fish do not feel pain, I raise the need to go beyond just-so stories and to rigorously analyse the neural circuitry responsible for specific behaviours using new and emerging technologies in neuroscience. By deciphering the causal relationship between neural information processing and conscious behaviour, it should be possible to assess cogently the …

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Pain In Fish: Weighing The Evidence, James D. Rose Jan 2016

Pain In Fish: Weighing The Evidence, James D. Rose

Animal Sentience

The target article by Key (2016) examines whether fish have brain structures capable of mediating pain perception and consciousness, functions known to depend on the neocortex in humans. He concludes, as others have concluded (Rose 2002, 2007; Rose et al. 2014), that such functions are impossible for fish brains. This conclusion has been met with hypothetical assertions by others to the effect that functions of pain and consciousness may well be possible through unknown alternate neural processes. Key's argument would be bolstered by consideration of other neurological as well as behavioral evidence, which shows that sharks and ray are fishes …

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Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver Jan 2016

Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver

Animal Sentience

Certain cortical regions are necessary for pain in humans in the sense that, at particular times, they play a direct role in pain. However, it is not true that they are necessary in the more important sense that pain is never possible in humans without them. There are additional details from human lesion studies concerning functional plasticity that undermine Key’s (2016) interpretation. Moreover, no one has yet identified any specific behaviors that mammalian cortical pain regions make possible that are absent in fish.

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Why Is Fish “Feeling” Pain Controversial?, E. Don Stevens Jan 2016

Why Is Fish “Feeling” Pain Controversial?, E. Don Stevens

Animal Sentience

In his excellent target article, Key (2016) develops a mechanistic argument in an attempt to show why it is unlikely that fish can “feel” pain or for that matter, “feel” anything. The topic is controversial and likely to achieve the goal of getting many hits for the inaugural issue of the new journal, Animal Sentience. In my view, the question is unlikely to be answered, for two reasons. First, because the proponents of the “fish feel pain” controversy are untrained and unskilled in the details and jargon of neurophysiology and/or neuroanatomy, and the opponents of the controversy, like Key, …

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A Single Strand Of Argument With Unfounded Conclusion, Robert W. Elwood Jan 2016

A Single Strand Of Argument With Unfounded Conclusion, Robert W. Elwood

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) describes the neural system involved in human pain experience in an excellent fashion but then suggests that only that complete system can generate the experience of pain. Thus animals without all components will not feel pain. This argument has been refuted in the past by analogy to vision where it is clear that a broad range of taxa, vertebrate and invertebrate, have good visual abilities albeit with completely different central nervous systems and receptors. This known counterargument to Key’s main idea is not mentioned in the target article. Further criteria that might indicate pain and studies examining these …

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Pain And Fish Welfare, Eliane Gonçalves-De-Freitas Jan 2016

Pain And Fish Welfare, Eliane Gonçalves-De-Freitas

Animal Sentience

The evolutionary approach of Key’s (2016) target article, generically comparing humans with fish of all kinds, is simplistic. The author ignores published research on structural and molecular aspects of pain in fish. The target article reads more like a selective polemic against fish welfare than an even-handed analysis.

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Nonverbal Indicators Of Pain, Simon Van Rysewyk Jan 2016

Nonverbal Indicators Of Pain, Simon Van Rysewyk

Animal Sentience

In discussing fish pain, Key (2016) privileges pain in humans — “the only species able to directly report on its feelings.” Human experience of pain is not necessarily best reflected by verbal self-report, however. Neural responses to noxious stimuli are influenced by individual differences and by context. Nonverbal pain displays such as facial expressions reflect part of the neural response to noxious stimuli. Most mammals have a specific facial grimace reflecting pain. If fish have a somatic expression of pain, the development of a reliable and accurate somatic pain scale specific to fish could make a contribution to the debate …

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Drawing The Line On Pain, Bjorn Merker Jan 2016

Drawing The Line On Pain, Bjorn Merker

Animal Sentience

The structure of Key's (2016) argument that fish do not feel pain is flawed, betraying a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of feelings and their role in the brain's functional division of labor. The evidence Key marshals in support of his premature commitment to an exclusively corticocentric view of consciousness in humans is plagued by repeated failures of scholarship.

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Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt Jan 2016

Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt

Animal Sentience

Key’s (2016) discussion of his claim that fish do not feel pain ignores the history of attempts to study the attribution of mental states to other species. Although willing to accept that mammals feel pain, Key claims that fish lack the mammalian neural mechanisms underlying pain and are unconscious of their experiences. Consequently, we do not need to be overly concerned about fishing practices that would otherwise be viewed as painful. Key uses a flawed anthropomorphic lens. All attributions of mental events to organisms other than oneself involve inferences derived from anthropomorphic processes through which we process physiological and behavioral …

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Leaving The Door Open For Fish Pain: Evolutionary Convergence And The Utility Of ‘Just-So Stories’, David B. Edelman Jan 2016

Leaving The Door Open For Fish Pain: Evolutionary Convergence And The Utility Of ‘Just-So Stories’, David B. Edelman

Animal Sentience

Key argues that fish do not experience pain because they lack the necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) brain structures and associated functional circuitry to engender such conscious percepts. I propose that fish pain may be dependent on neuroanatomical regions and pathways that are structurally and/or functionally analogous — but not strictly homologous — to well-characterized mammalian substrates of pain. An example is the convergent appearance of the complex, single-compartment eye across invertebrate and vertebrate phylogeny. Structural-functional convergence is ubiquitous in evolution. Comparative inferences and correlative lines of evidence play an important role in building evolutionary arguments. The dismissal of the …

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Pain-Capable Neural Substrates May Be Widely Available In The Animal Kingdom, Edgar T. Walters Jan 2016

Pain-Capable Neural Substrates May Be Widely Available In The Animal Kingdom, Edgar T. Walters

Animal Sentience

Neural and behavioral evidence from diverse species indicates that some forms of pain may be generated by coordinated activity in networks far smaller than the cortical pain matrix in mammals. Studies on responses to injury in squid suggest that simplification of the circuitry necessary for conscious pain might be achieved by restricting awareness to very limited information about a noxious event, possibly only to the fact that injury has occurred, ignoring information that is much less important for survival, such as the location of the injury. Some of the neural properties proposed to be critical for conscious pain in mammals …

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Where Is Pain In The Brain?, Marshall Devor Jan 2016

Where Is Pain In The Brain?, Marshall Devor

Animal Sentience

Key argues that fish cannot experience pain based on (1) brain imaging in humans, (2) consequences of lesions and (3) direct brain stimulation. Imaging indeed shows that pain-relevant signals reach the cortex, but not that they underlie the subjective experience of pain. Lesions and stimulation data are more to the point, but Key paints an idiosyncratic and misleading picture of their effects. S1 and S2 ablation does not eliminate evoked or spontaneous pain, although there may be up- or down-modulation. Likewise, stimulation of pain-associated cortical areas rarely induces pain, and pain almost never occurs at the onset of epileptic seizures. …

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Fish Pain: Would It Change Current Best Practice In The Real World?, B. K. Diggles Jan 2016

Fish Pain: Would It Change Current Best Practice In The Real World?, B. K. Diggles

Animal Sentience

Much of the “fish pain debate” relates to how high the bar for pain should be set. The close phylogenetic affinities of teleosts with cartilaginous fishes which appear to lack nociceptors suggests caution should be applied by those who seek to lower the bar, especially given the equivocal and conflicting nature of the experimental data currently available for teleosts. Nevertheless, even if we assume fish “feel pain,” it is difficult to see how current best practice in aquaculture would change. This is because of the need to avoid stress at all stages of the rearing process to optimize health, growth …

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Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key Jan 2016

Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key

Animal Sentience

The reader of Animal Sentience may surmise that because the weight of the commentaries on my target article, “Why fish do not feel pain,” is leaning towards not supporting my argument, it follows that the premise "fish do not feel pain" is incorrect. However, science does not prevail by popular opinion. History is plagued with numerous (and often widely accepted) examples of biological phenomena being explained by mysterious forces. In the absence of a mechanistic understanding, the many different guises of vitalism (the principle that life involves a vital energy) are often invoked to explain the unknown. Spurious …

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