Psychotic Lab Mice

meltoast writes "We send lab mice through a maze to see their reactions and then take that information and apply it to our knowledge of the human psyche. Well, what if those mice are completely out of their minds? Discover recently ran an article showing that mice kept in a standard laboratory environment may be crazy. 'In one sequence, a mouse climbs the stainless-steel walls of its cage, hangs from the ceiling by its forelegs while gnawing on the bars, then drops to the floor, only to repeat the process endlessly. On the other side of the cage, a second mouse performs backflips, one per second, for up to 30 minutes at a time.'"

Comments

Re:How are we any more sane?

[egomaniac]

Three points of note:

A) These activities consume up to half of the creatures' waking hours, every single day.

B) The affected animals also exhibit other deficiencies and obsessive behaviors.

C) The entire lifestyle of these creatures is wildly altered by the addition of something as simple as a cardboard tube to their cages.

I hardly think that an hour on a trampoline every now and then is even remotely similar.