Is this right?

"Well, what about animal rights? Animals have feelings, too. Animal experimentation should not be allowed." 
These are some of the thoughts that many people may have about this whole idea of experimenting on mice and using them towards the research of neurodegenerative diseases. I know questions will rise and many of you may be concerned more about the animals themselves than the contributions they can make. 
Of course, these questions should be addressed and answered instead of ignored. 

We can all agree that it is truly unethical to experiment on animals and give them a feature for aesthetic reasons. For instance, the glow-in-the-dark cat is simply generated as novelty trade pets; inserting glow-in-the-dark genes in a cat is unnecessary. Treating animals as if they were entertainment is unethical. Many people consider their cats as their most prized pets and have a large place in their hearts. For these reasons, it is wrong to experiment on animals for amusement. 

However, there are certain circumstances where animal experimentation is very beneficial. For example, transgenic mice in the research of neurodegenerative diseases. These animals have contributed so much in research and allowed researchers to learn so much more about these diseases. Without these mice, researchers would not be as close as they are to finding cures. I'm not saying that it's okay to use animals to save human lives, nor am I saying animals should not be used at all for research and studies. There is constant debate about these perspectives. However, in these cases, animal experimentation is beneficial. 

Because there are so many different perspectives about animal experimentation, some may say, who are we to measure the worth of a mouse's life and compare it to a human's. Who are we to say which life is more worth it? Is there a trade off we can actually calculate? Or is that unethical as well? 

In the end, the answer to the question "Is it right?" varies. There will never be one answer that everyone can agree on, just like how there will never be a way to measure an animal's life to a human's. 

One more scholarly source

You're probably wondering, "Another post on sources?! Come on, how many more sources do you need, Laura?" 
I agree, I have a good amount of scholarly sources to use and cite in my paper. But one more won't hurt. After all, more is better than less. More sources just means more to support my paper and make it more of a solid piece. As long as I am not just filling the paper with quotes, paraphrases and citations, and am making a strong clear argument, it should not serve much of a problem. 
So one last scholarly source for this blog. 

"Animal models of human amyloidoses: Are transgenic mice worth the timeand trouble?" by Joel N. Buxbaum may just be the source that will answer some of your questions as to whether or not transgenic animals as great as they are perceived to be. Many of the sources I use mainly focus on the benefits that modeled animals have towards research. Some do address problems and disadvantages they faced, but the main tone of the paper is praising the mice. 
However,  Buxbaum's source focuses on whether or not transgenic animals are actually worth it. Should they be used? Are they really that much better? Is the trade-off so significant? 
In this paper, Buxbaum gives several examples of where transgenic models are used for and what types of considerations might be required for an ideal transgenic model. Buxbaum's tone is not a complete go-for-it nor a skeptical one. Rather, Buxbaum is openminded since he listed some considerations for transgenic animals. He then concluded the paper by saying it is up to the researchers as to whether or not it is worth using transgenic animals. The advantage to using transgenic models is being able to examine certain effects and singling out one protein to study. The results of using transgenic models and using non-transgenic models really varies from certain disorders and specifics of the disorder. The disadvantage to using transgenic mice is the unexplainable results, such as a enormous loss of cells. This may be because of the mice's short life span and the fact that mice are much simpler animals than humans, but that is not known for sure. There are always pros and cons to making a decision, but in the end, it remains to be the researchers' decision as to whether or not it is suitable for use in their specific research problem. 

I feel that this source is a great mediator to my paper since my other sources are quite favorable towards using transgenic animals. It is always great to have a source that is not too one sided. 

More Sources?

The hunt continues for more sources.

Usually, finding sources for a topic is fairly easy. There are a gazillion sources out there on transgenic animals right?

Well that's what I thought until I was searching for sources that narrowed down to transgenic animals and their role in the research of neurodegenerative diseases.
Whenever the topic of writing a paper comes up with my friends, I tell them what my topic is. Before I can even get past saying "transgenic mice and their..." they cut me off with a look of displeasure and mercy. Frankly, I find this topic quite interesting and bearable with the exception of finding sources.
The topic of transgenic animals is broad. In the beginning of my research, I simply typed in "Transgenic Animals" into the search bar and thousands of scholarly sources came up. Yes, scholarly. The topics of these sources were quite broad, which is how I found my topic for the paper. I settled with transgenic animals and neurodegenerative diseases. I started to scout for more sources for my research since I do need at least 5 scholarly, peer-reviewed sources. Entering "Transgenic Animals and Neurodegenerative diseases" only gave me hundreds of sources. This number decreased as I filtered the results.

After an accumulation of several hours, I have five solid scholarly sources so far.
The two I have not shared yet on this blog are "Transgenic animal models of Alzehimer's disease and related disorders: histopathology, behavior and therapy" by J Götz et al. and "Alpha-synuclein and transgenic mouse models" by Pierre-Oliver Fernagut and Marie-Fancoise Chesselet.
Both of these sources explain the research and discoveries made with transgenic mice.

Götz et al. wrote "Transgenic animal models of Alzehimer's disease and related disorders: histopathology, behavior and therapy"in 2004 before A Decade of Tau Transgenic Animal Models and Beyond was written in 2007, which I talked about in a previous post, Neurodegenerative Diseases. In his earlier paper, Götz et al. not only focuses on tau transgenic mice, but also β-Amyloid transgenic mice. Here, β-Amyloid mice were used to observe the relationship between the amount of β-Amyloid present in the brain and memory impairment. The β-Amlyoid mice confirmed their theory. Mice with greater levels of β-Amlyoid in the brain resulted in greater memory impairment. This is a great finding because it lets researchers know what is associated with memory impairment, one of the greatest and most dangerous symptoms of Alzheimer's. Thanks to transgenic mice, researchers can now utilize this knowledge to move to the next step into the finding a cure for Alzheimer's.

In "Alpha-synuclein and transgenic mouse models," Fernagut and Chesselet used transgenic mice for researching Parkinson Disease. Unlike the other sources I am using, this one is not about the findings of how transgenic mice have made a contribution to learning more about Parkinson Disease. The animals did not display what the researchers hoped the mice would. Fernagut and Chesselet expected dopaminergic neuronal death in the substantial nigra. But instead, the mice expressed inconclusive results of the relationship between α-syn and dopamine dysfunction. Despite the failure in their experiment, Fernagut and Chesselet were still satisfied with the mice models and will remain to use transgenic animals for alternatives. The models captured the features and characteristics of Parkinson Disease. Researchers find this relevant and important because these mice can be used to test another hypothesis that increased levels of α-syn predispose relating to the development of the diseases. The mice will be used to receive a better understanding of α-syn. 

I found these sources to be quite useful in my paper for they will support my argument of the contributions that transgenic mice have made to the researching of neurodegenerative diseases. I will continue to share more sources in the following post or two.