• Question: Do you think it is important not to harm other animals when you do your research and what are you looking particularly in the brain and why?

    Asked by elisabethrodger to Martin on 17 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Martin Coath

      Martin Coath answered on 17 Mar 2010:

      Hi Elisabeth – this is going to be a long and complicated answer – are you ready!

      My work does not involve animals. This means I don’t have to face all the ethical issues with respect to my PERSONAL actions.

      But, like all scientists, and all non-scientists (that is everyone) I do have to face these issues with respect to medicine, technology, and progress in general.

      These days scientist have to look after their animals very well – and all the time the standards that they have to meet get higher. This makes it difficult and expensive to do animal studies and in my opinion that is a VERY GOOD THING!

      Every year work like mine, work like Natalies, and thousands of other people’s work makes it more likely that we will be able to stop animal studies. The question is, should we stop them now when many people think we still need them and there are no alternatives?

      Let me know what you think.

      Natalie has given a very thoughtful answer to a very similar question so you should read her answer as well.

      =================

      Now the second part!

      I am looking particularly at how we make sense of the world through our eyes and ears (I concentrate mostly on hearing). Nobody knows how we hear when we are adults but we think it may be something to do with being exposed to different typoes of sound when we are young.

      My simulations are designed to test ideas about how we learn to hear. Our ears do work when we are born but the way we process sounds is probably refined and improved throughout childhood.

      If we understood how this worked we might be able to help those who cannot hear by designing electronic brain “add ons” that learn how to distinguish sounds (this may also work for vision) in a way thay is similar to your brain.

      Our project has the technology to build electronics that work like real brains (NOT like computers) and my work is designed to help us make them useful.

      If you need any more let me know.

Comments

  • Photo: Chris

    Chris commented on :

    I have a long answer on the same question (well without the brain bit) on the same place as Nathalie’s that Martin refers to.

  • Photo: elisabethrodger

    elisabethrodger commented on :

    I think it would be good to find an alternative but if we have to use animals we should make sure they arn’t in any pain.
    how would you add the ‘add-ons’ to peoles brains to help them hear?

    • Photo: Martin

      Martin commented on :

      Amazingly most of the practical problems have already been solved!

      At the moment it is possible to do an operation to put some electronics in the ear to help those with no hearing. This is called a `cochlear implant’ and is now quite a common operation although difficult to do. Young people with almost no hearing sometimes even have implants in both ears.

      There have already been attempts to do something similar by implanting electronics in the BRAIN rather than the EAR to give back hearing – and these have worked! But the electronics needs major improvement.

      That is where my sort of work comes in. If we can understand what the brain does when it is working well then we can do something similar artificially for people with brain damage or disease.

      This doesn’t just apply to hearing. Treating problems in the brain by artificial add-ons has already been shown to be very useful in Parkinsons disease for example. I think we are going to hear a lot about this sort of thing in the future.