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Professor uses rats to understand fear |
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 |
by DYLAN CLAYTON
News Reporter
Can rats help researchers gain a better understanding of fear in humans?
Dr. James C. Denniston, a professor and assistant chairperson of the psychology department, thinks so.
In a series of experiments Denniston calls “investigating sources of
relapse of conditioned fears,” undergraduate and graduate students help
with fear research.
“There are two goals in this experiment. On one hand, there is
understanding how we learn. On the other hand, there’s the application
of the research,” Denniston said. “We’re looking at the Pavlovian
theory along the lines of phobias.”
The rats are kept in cages until the student research assistants take them to separate boxes for the experiment.
Senior psychology major Julia C. Fondren is one of Denniston’s student research assistants.
“Mostly we load them into boxes, which are cages that have various
stimuli, such as tone, light and shock. They are conditioned to have
fear of the light or tone, then we change conditions of their cages so
they look different,” Fondren said.
By exposing the rats to certain stimuli such as a flash of light or a
foot shock, the researchers are able to condition the rats to be scared
in that environment.
“We then prevent the original stimulus in the original context to see
if the fear comes back, which it usually does, which is called the
renewal effect,” Fondren said.
The experiment looks at ways to reduce fear by exposing animals to things they’re afraid of.
Over the years, that fear is best overcome in the place the fear is learned, Denniston said.
Seven undergraduate students and one graduate student are responsible
for making sure the experiment is done every day of the week.
“Bad weather is no excuse,” Denniston said.
The students are involved in setting up the experiments, analyzing
data, talking about the studies, presenting data and sometimes
attending national conferences.
Rats are used for several different reasons.
Rats have been the animals of choice for this division of psychology
for years. There is a lot of research already done with rats, which
allows for comparison, Denniston said.
The shock the rats receive is very mild.
“I often tell my students to try it themselves. The shock the rats receive is more shocking than anything,” Denniston said.
Each experiment takes about 30 days to complete and the current study is the third in the series.
Denniston became interested in this line of study during his undergraduate studies at New York University.
“As an undergrad, I was trying to decide if I wanted to do child psychology or experimental psychology.
I worked a year with research on pigeons and year with children. The choice was easy,” Denniston said.
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