Openness about animal research increases public support

A comparative review on neuroethical issues in neuroscientific and neuroethical journals

This study is a pilot literature review that compares the interest of neuroethicists and neuroscientists. It aims to determine whether there is a significant gap between the neuroethical issues addressed in philosophical neuroethics journals and neuroscience journals. We retrieved 614 articles from two specialist neuroethics journals (Neuroethics and AJOB Neuroscience) and 82 neuroethics-focused articles from three specialist neuroscience journals (Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, and Nature Reviews Neuroscience). We classified these articles in light of the neuroethical issue in question before we compared the neuroethical issues addressed in philosophical neuroethics with those addressed by neuroscientists. A notable result is a parallelism between them as a general tendency. Neuroscientific articles cover most neuroethical issues discussed by philosophical ethicists and vice versa. Subsequently, there are notable discrepancies between the two bodies of neuroethics literature. For instance, theoretical questions, such as the ethics of moral enhancement and the philosophical implications of neuroscientific findings on our conception of personhood, are more intensely discussed in philosophical-neuroethical articles. Conversely, neuroscientific articles tend to emphasize practical questions, such as how to successfully integrate ethical perspectives into scientific research projects and justifiable practices of animal-involving neuroscientific research. These observations will help us settle the common starting point of the attempt at "ethics integration" in emerging neuroscience, contributing to better governance design and neuroethical practice.

Introducing individual sentience profiles in nonhuman primate neuroscience research

The Animal Research Declaration is committed to establishing cohesive and rigorous ethical standards to safeguard the welfare of nonhuman primates (NHPs) engaged in neuroscience research (Petkov et al., 2022 this issue). As part of this mission, there is an expanding dialogue amongst neuroscientists, philosophers, and policymakers, that is centred on diverse aspects of animal welfare and scientific practice. This paper emphasises the necessity of integrating the assessment of animal sentience into the declaration. Animal sentience, in this context, refers to the recognized capacity that animals have for various kinds of subjective experience, with an associated positive or negative valence (Browning and Birch, 2022). Accordingly, NHP neuroscience researchers should work toward instituting a standardised approach for evaluating what can be termed "individual sentience profiles," representing the unique manner in which an individual NHP experiences specific events or environments. The adoption of this novel parameter would serve a triad of indispensable purposes: enhancing NHP welfare throughout research involvement, elevating the quality of life for NHPs in captivity, and refining the calibre of research outcomes.

CIRS-LAS - a novel approach to increase transparency in laboratory animal science for improving animal welfare by reducing laboratory animal distress

The 3Rs principle is highly topical in animal-based research. These include, above all, new scientific methods for conducting experiments without an animal model, by using non-animal models (Replace), reducing the number of laboratory animals (Reduction) or taking measures to keep the stress on the laboratory animal as low as possible (Refinement). Despite numerous modern alternative approaches, the complete replacement of animal experiments is not yet possible. The exchange in the team about the daily work with laboratory animals, about open questions and problems, contributes to a reflection of one's own work and to a better understanding of the work of the others. CIRS-LAS (Critical Incident Reporting System in Laboratory Animal Science) represents a reporting system for incidents in laboratory animal science. It is urgently needed because the lack of transparency about incidents leads to the repetition of failed experiments. Negative experiences from animal-based experiments are often not mentioned in publications, and the fear of hostility is still very high. Therefore, a constructive approach to errors is not a matter of course. To overcome this barrier, CIRS-LAS was created as a web-based database. It addresses the areas of reduction and refinement of the 3Rs principle by providing a platform to collect and analyze incidents. CIRS-LAS is open to all individuals working with laboratory animals worldwide and currently exists with 303 registered members, 52 reports, and an average of 71 visitors per month. The development of CIRS-LAS shows, that an open and constructive error culture is difficult to establish. Nevertheless, the upload of a case report or the search in the database leads to an active reflection of critical occurrences. Thus, it is an important step towards more transparency in laboratory animal science. As expected, the collected events in the database concern different categories and animal species and are primarily reported by persons involved in an experiment. However, reliable conclusions about observed effects require further analysis and continuous collection of case reports. Looking at the development of CIRS-LAS, its high potential is shown in considering the 3Rs principle in daily scientific work.

BioSimia, France CNRS network for nonhuman primate biomedical research in infectiology, immunology, and neuroscience

Research and developments based on nonhuman primate models have a specific place in biomedical sciences, and nonhuman primate species also have a specific place in the public opinion on the use of animal in research. While nonhuman primates are used in very limited number compared to other animal models, they are rightly the focus of deep ethical concerns. The importance of nonhuman primates in neuroscientific fundamental and preclinical discoveries together with the targeting of such research by activist groups well illustrate this fact. Nonhuman primates also highly contribute to other biomedical fields including immunology, virology, or metabolic and respiratory physiology. In all these fields, researchers, engineers and technicians face similar matters and share the same needs for optimal animal welfare, handling, and veterinary care, the same quest for first-rate research infrastructure and funding, and the same yearning for more public understanding and support. In this article, we give an overview of the evolution of human-animal relationships and public attitudes to animal research in France, and we recount the creation of BioSimia, France network for nonhuman primate biomedical research which now links all academic laboratories nationwide in all the domains for which nonhuman primates remain essential. We explain the principles as well as the outcomes of networking across disciplines. As a perspective, we outline the potential benefits of extending such network to a European scale.

A State-of-the-Art Review on the Alternatives to Animal Testing for the Safety Assessment of Cosmetics

Almost a decade after the stipulated deadline in the 7th amendment to the EU Cosmetics Directive, which bans the marketing of animal-tested cosmetics in the EU from 2013, animal experimentation for cosmetic-related purposes remains a topic of animated debate. Cosmetic industry continues to be scrutinised for the practice, despite its leading role in funding and adopting innovation in this field. This paper aims to provide a state-of-the-art review of the field on alternative testing methods, also known as New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), with the focus on assessing the safety of cosmetic ingredients and products. It starts with innovation drivers and global regulatory responses, followed by an extensive, endpoint-specific overview of accepted/prospective NAMs. The overview covers main developments in acute toxicity, skin corrosion/irritation, serious eye damage/irritation, skin sensitisation, repeated dose toxicity, reproductive toxicity/endocrine disruption, mutagenicity/genotoxicity, carcinogenicity, photo-induced toxicity, and toxicokinetics. Specific attention was paid to the emerging in silico methodology. This paper also provides a brief overview of the studies on public perception of animal testing in cosmetics. It concludes with a view that educating consumers and inviting them to take part in advocacy could be an effective tool to achieve policy changes, regulatory acceptance, and investment in innovation.

Mice in translational neuroscience: What R we doing?

Animal models play a pivotal role in translational neuroscience but recurrent problems in data collection, analyses, and interpretation, lack of biomarkers, and a tendency to over-reliance on mice have marred neuroscience progress, leading to one of the highest attrition rates in drug translation. Global initiatives to improve reproducibility and model selection are being implemented. Notwithstanding, mice are still the preferred animal species to model human brain disorders even when the translation has been shown to be limited. Non-human primates are better positioned to provide relevant translational information because of their higher brain complexity and homology to humans. Among others, lack of resources and formal training, strict legislation, and ethical issues may impede broad access to large animals. We propose that instead of increasingly restrictive legislation, more resources for training, education, husbandry, and data sharing are urgently needed. The creation of multidisciplinary teams, in which veterinarians need to play a key role, would be critical to improve translational efficiency. Furthermore, it is not usually acknowledged by researchers and regulators the value of comparative studies in lower species, that are instrumental in toxicology, target identification, and mechanistic studies. Overall, we highlight here the need for a conceptual shift in neuroscience research and policies to reach the patients.