Ode to a Mother

Last year, I spent some time working in a neuroscience lab. The experience was very grounding. I worked in a lab that deals with mice. More specifically, they study the development of the brain of the embryo, at various times prior to birth.

Why mice, you might ask? The final goal is to understand what happens in the human brain, but since human life is considered more precious, experiments are first conducted on “lower life forms”. It starts with fruit flies (yes, they do have a developed nervous system), then mice and rats, then primates such as monkeys, and finally human beings. A lot of the similarity lies in brain architecture. As one goes up this ladder, the brains, and hence the response of the animal gets increasingly similar to that of a human. For example, if one wanted to test a vaccine for Covid, it would probably be more prudent to first test it out on these creatures, and then on humans. Before a vaccine hits the general public, it goes through 3 stages of trials (on humans). The number of people it is tried on increases with each stage, so that all the side effects of the vaccine can be noted.

On average, in this final vaccine trial stage, thousands of people are experimented on. Now, imagine the number of fruit flies, mice and apes that were used, before it even came to humans. Lets take a sneak peek into this process.

It starts with making sure that the progeny have the required genetic trait that is being studied. This means that mating must take place selectively. There is a room filled with mice cages, and a male and female are kept in the same cage when mating is required. There are methods that are used to know if the female is pregnant. Her pregnancy is monitored, and she is taken to the lab on the exact day that the embryo’s brain is needed. The mother is sacrificed, the embryo brains are extracted, cut and stored for further study.

Here is a problem. A mother gives birth to between 3 to 12 pups at once. One can’t always guarantee that all the progeny will have the required genes, or traits. But once they are taken out of the womb, they die. This is pretty unfortunate. To their credit, neuroscientists try their best to reduce any wastage of life, and do very precise calculations to ensure that the life they take is meaningful. Sadly, mathematical models cannot always be replicated in life.

The lab that I worked in had a few harvest days, maybe one or two in a fortnight. Each harvest day is different, but at least one mouse is killed on each harvest day. This means that, in a year, a minimum of 96 mice lives are taken in a single lab (I do not know the stats for other creature labs). Yes, this is the price of that one tiny pill you pop into your mouth every time you have a headache.

I highly appreciate how the field of neuroscience (and biology) has transformed this world. The world would simply not be the same without these experiments. The brain is the chip of our body machinery, and all our knowledge about the life of this machine comes from neuroscience.

A lot of neuroscientists work on making animal experimentation less life-consuming. There are talks of using 3D printers. Since 2013, a lab in Cambridge has been working on growing a human brain, using a few cells. It is a very long journey, and there are a lot of potholes, but there is hope that we will get there someday.

I stopped working in the lab after approximately 2 months. It took me a very long time to make peace with the number of lives I had taken. This was a very important experience for my growth. It taught me that the progress of humanity has costs that are often overlooked. There are several points when one feels that one is a torch bearer of morality, trying to minimize dependence on other life forms. Of course, to those who actively put efforts into doing this, their hard work is very much respected. But it was vital for me to realize that to completely avoid animal hurt is inescapable. In fact, this knowledge only strengthens my resolve to do a better job, knowing that there are many more lives that have been sacrificed for my well-being, than I could have imagined.