Yang Dan: Electrodes inserted into cats brains.


Yang Dan
[home addresses removed]

Office:
Professor Yang Dan
230D Barker Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-643-2833
Lab Phone: 510-643-3935
Email: ydan@berkeley.edu

UC Berkeley's Yang Dan has been using and abusing cats and rodents for years in useless "scientific curiousity" visual experiments, like her natural scenes experiment, where she recorded the world through a cat's eyes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/471786.stm Supposedly performed under sufficient anesthesia, Yang Dan's cats and other animals are paralyzed with a drug, a hole is drilled in their skulls and electrodes inserted directly into their brains. They are placed in "stereotaxic device with ear bars, eye bars and a mouth bar to stabilize the head position." Their eyes are "glued" to "posts." They are subjected to visual stimuli, and the electrical firings of roughly a dozen single brain cells or less are recorded continuously for up to "72 hours" non-stop until the "cortex stops giving normal visual responses." Rats are placed in a "light-tight box, and kept under no-light conditions for 48 hours to 1 week prior to recording," or one eye would be sewed shut. Rats will also undergo fluid deprivation to "motivate" them to perform tasks to test Dr. Dan's "visual discrimination paradigm." The purpose, she claims, is to "understand how visual neurons code and process information" and how "connectivity between them are modulated by visual inputs." From a 2003 paper of Yang Dan's: A total of 18 anesthetized adult cats were used. ...Single unit recordings were made in area 17 [of the brain] using tungsten electrodes. Eye movement was minimized by mechanical stabilization. Visual stimuli were generated with a personal computer and presented with a monitor.

Jack Gallant: Fluid deprivation and electrodes inserted in the brains of non-human primates.



Jack Gallant

Office:
Professor Jack Gallant
3115 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Lab Phone: 510-642-2606
Fax: 510-642-5293
Email: gallant@socrates.berkeley.edu

Stephen Glickman: Invasive reproductive experiments on female hyenas



Stephen Glickman

Office:
Professor Stephen Glickman
3131 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510 642-5797
Fax: 510-642-5293
Email: glickman@socrates.berkeley.edu

Professor Stephen Glickman describing what he's learned while putting hyenas through a life of hell in an enclosure in the hills north of the UC Berkeley campus: "The external genitalia are highly "masculinized," i.e., the clitoris has hypertrophied to form a pseudopenis, traversed by a central urogenital canal. There is no external vagina. The female spotted hyena urinates, copulates and gives birth through her clitoris." From a November 2005 Animal Care and Use Committee document detailing Stephen Glickman's so-called research: "The project studies sexual differentiation in the spotted hyena. A captive-breeding colony of hyenas is maintained for this research and currently consists of 34 animals. One aspect of the project involves terminating pregnancies at various times to study the sexual differentiation process and its hormonal correlates. Since there are a limited number of breeding females, the investigator has received permission from the ACUC to carry out multiple Cesarean sections (C-sections) on individual females to acheive the minimum sample sizes for statistical validity. The minimum interval between surgeries is 6 months... During this reporting period, 3 hyenas (that previously had a C-section) underwent an additional Cesarean section."

Ralph Freeman: Invasive experiments on cats (Electrodes inserted into their brains)



Ralph Freeman

Office:
Professor Ralph Freeman
589 Minor Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-642-6341
Lab Phone: 510-642-6440
Lab Fax: (510) 642-3323

From a 2005 paper of UC Berkeley Professor Ralph Freeman: "Data were obtained from ten young cats (age 2.5 - 6 months) bred in a closed laboratory setting. ...Briefly, anesthesia was induced with an intramuscular injection of ketamine...and xylazine. ...During recording, the animal was paralyzed with continuous intravenous infusion of gallarmine triethiodide in glucose saline. The pupils were dilated with atropine hydrochloride... ...Animals were refracted, and gas-permeable contact lenses with 3.5mm artificial pupils were fitted to correct focus for a viewing distance of 50cm. A trepanation (hole drilled into the skull) was made above area 17 of one or both cortical hemispheres and the dura (the tough and inflexible outermost of the three layers of the meninges surrounding the brain and spinal cord) was removed. Animals viewed, via front-silvered mirrors, a 21 inch monitor positioned at a distance of 50cm on which stimuli were presented independently in the two eyes. ...In the majority of experiments, neuronal activity was recorded with glass-insulated tungsten micro-electrodes." From another 2005 paper of Freeman's: A total of 14 cats were used in this study. Animals were anesthetized with thiopental sodium (Pentothal) through a venous catheter at a continuous infusion rate determined individually for each animal. ...After a tracheostomy, each animal was placed into a sterotaxic frame and artificially ventilated... ...A craniotomy was performed over each hemisphere...for recordings in visual cortex. ...After craniotomy, the dura (tough and inflexible outermost of the three layers of the meninges surrounding the brain and spinal cord) was reflected to expose the cortex. During recording, eye movements were blocked with a continuous intravenous infusion of pancuronium bromide. Hydration was maintained by a continuous infusion of lactated Ringer's solution. ...Rigid contact lenses with 4mm artificial pupils covered the eyes during recording. After the micro-electrode sensor was positioned over the target brain location, the craniotomy was sealed with agar and a wax coating. Each animal was positioned in front of a system of mirrors that directs the field of view of each eye to separate halves of a cathode ray tube display.

Frederic Theunissen: Invasive and useless experiments on birds at: "Torture for a sexy song"



Frederic Theunissen
Office:
Professor Frederic Theunissen
3425 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-643-1531
Fax: 510-642-5293
Email: theunissen@berkeley.edu

From a 2006 paper of Theunissen's: Twenty-one adult male zebra finches were used. All birds were bred and raised at the University of California, Berkeley. We recorded the electro-physiological responses of single units in the auditory midbrain region. Two days before recording, a bird was anesthetized... The bird was then placed in a custom stereotaxic with ear bars and a beak holder. Lidocaine was applied to the skin overlying the skull, and a midline incision was made. A metal pin was fixed to the skull with dental cement... On the day of recording, the bird was anesthetized with three injections and placed in the stereotaxic. At this dose, achieves a level of anethesia without complete loss of consciousness. The bird's head was immobilized by attaching the metal pin cemented to the bird's skull to a customized holder mounted on the stereotaxic. Lidocaine was applied to the skin overlying the skull region covering the optic lobe. After application, a small incision was made in the skin over the skull covering the optic tectum. A small opening was made in the skull, and the dura was resected from the surface of the brain. ...Neural recordings were conducted in a sound-attenuated chamber. ...After recording, the bird was anesthetized with Nembutal and transcardially perfused with 0.9% saline followed by 3.7% formalin in 0.025m phosphate buffer. The skullcap was removed and the brain was postfixed in formalin for at least 5d.

John Casida: Poisoning and slow death of rabbits and rodents.



John Casida
Office:
Professor John Casida
114 Wellman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-642-5424
Fax: 510 642-6497
Email: ectl@nature.berkeley.edu

Jeffery Winer: Brain and ear recordings of cats



Jeffery Winer performs highly invasive and gruesome brain and ear recordings in cats. He's performed the same experiments on primates, squirrels, bats, and other animals in the past.

Jeffery Winer

Office:
289 Life Sciences Addition
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-642-8227
Fax: 510-643-6791
Email: jaw@berkeley.edu

Frank Werblin: Killer of rabbits



Frank Werblin
Office:
Professor Frank Werblin
145 Life Sciences Addition
Office Phone: 510- 642-7236
Lab Phone: 510-642-3281
Fax: 801-640-3205
Email: werblin@berkeley.edu

Mu-Ming Poo: Cocaine addiction and decapitation of rodents



Mu-Ming Poo addicts rodents to cocaine. He also decapitates baby rats.

Office:
Professor Mu-Ming Poo
229 Life Sciences Addition
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: (510) 642-2514
Lab Phone: (510) 643-4576
Email: mpoo@berkeley.edu
Fax: 510-642-2544

From a 2007 paper of Mu-Ming Poo's: "Young Sprague Dawley rats were anesthetized with Sodium Pentobarbital and decapitated. The brain was rapidly dissected and transferred [to be studied.]"

Irving Zucker: Years of useless and cruel experiments on squirrels and other rodents.

Irving Zucker

Office:
Professor Irving Zucker
Office Phone: 510-642-7136
Lab Phone: 510-642-5292
Fax: 510-642-5293
E-mail: Irvzuck@berkeley.edu

From a 2005 paper of Zucker's: Siberian hamster pups were weaned at 18 days of age and individually housed for the remainder of the experiment. Pineal glands of adult hamsters were removed under anethesia. ...Hamsters were secured in a stereotaxic device. A circular opening (approximately 2mm in diameter) was drilled in the skull and the pineal gland was removed with a pair of microdissecting forceps. For sham-pinx hamsters, the circular opening was drilled but the skull flap was not removed. ...Pinealectomies were performed under cyrogenic anethesia without the use of a restraining device. A bone flap was retracted and the pineal gland exposed and removed."

From a 2001 study of Zucker's:

The female golden-mantled ground squirrels used in this study were born in the Berkeley laboratory to pregnant females that were trapped near Truckee, CA. ...Squirells were housed individually in a 14:10 light/dark cycle. When animals were 2-3 years of age and at or near their annual body mass nadir they were deeply anesthetized with pentobarbital sodium. ...Squirells were positioned in a stereotaxic instrument with the incisor bar 1.0mm above the interaural line, and a single midline incision was made. ...All squirells had radiofrequency transmitters implanted in their abdominal cavities for telemetric recording 1-2 years after brain surgery. At the end of the study, the squirells were killed with pentobarbital sodium, and their brains were removed and studied.

Zucker has experimented on mammals such as voles, hamsters, and ground squirrels since 1971. Zucker has long studied the effects of different "day lengths" and brain lesions on sexual and other behaviors in small mammals.