Two wrongs do not make a right: animal models of physical and sexual abuse
In the move to transition away from animal research and towards New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), the emphasis tends to be on developing and validating NAMs, as if their availability alone will create the necessary momentum for transition.
But transition science tells us that things aren’t that simple and that in fact there needs to be at least equal emphasis on phasing out old technologies. In the case of animal research, one way of doing this might be to call a halt to animal studies that have clearly failed to generate any clinical benefits (stroke, brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease spring to mind). Another might be to immediately cease funding and approving studies that are clearly unnecessary, unscientific and unethical.
It was with the latter in mind that we read Animal Free Science Advocacy’s recent post about an Australian study published last month, which reported on an animal model of non-fatal strangulation (Sun et al 2025). Unbelievably, this model was developed to throw light on the injuries women can suffer at the hands of sexual partners (‘intimate partner violence’). The scientists assigned 6–7-week-old female rats to either control, brain injury, strangulation, or brain injury plus strangulation groups. Brain injuries were inflicted by using pneumatic pressure to propel a 50mg weight against the rats’ heads and strangulation was mimicked by suspending a 680g weight across the rats’ trachea for 90 seconds. Following a period of assessment the animals were killed and their brains examined. The results of this study? Strangulation plus brain injury presents differently to brain injury alone, exacerbating functional deficits, neuropathophysiology, and blood biomarkers.
There are so many problems with this study and AFSA disentangles them, highlighting not only the animal welfare issues, and the usual problems of translation and methodology, but also the particular feature of this research that distinguishes it from other types of animal research, namely its simulation of violent, criminal acts.
We have had the misfortune to come across similar studies and even studies that have attempted to model criminal acts of sexual violence. Consider this US study which reports an animal model of childhood sexual abuse (Vogt 2018). Three times a week for 3 weeks, juvenile rabbits were placed in slings to render them immobile while they had balloons inserted into their anuses to simulate anal rape. The balloons were held in place for 21 minutes ‘to simulate time to male ejaculation’ with 7 cycles of distension taking place during each session. After each session, rabbits were placed in a box with the sling now repositioned against the far wall. Animals from the control group quickly approached the sling, but those that had undergone the simulated rape almost never approached the sling. The finding of this study is that the abused rabbits understood and feared the context of their abuse.
Some studies manipulate animals themselves into perpetrating violence. One (US) study placed prepubescent rats of both sexes with aggressive adult males for ten minutes, then killed them and examined their brains to investigate whether childhood abuse is processed differently according to sex (Weathington et al 2012). Previous studies of intimate partner violence have taken a similar approach. A Swiss team, for example, housed virgin female rats with male rats for 21 days. In one study (Cordero et al 2012) the male rats were stressed (as a result of prior exposure to fear-inducing experiences) and displayed high levels of aggression towards the young females, who lost weight and showed increased anxiety- and depression-like behaviours. In another, the authors found that an anxious temperament in the female rats moderated the impact of the male rats’ aggression (Poirier et al 2013).
A US team has focused on animal models of male sexual violence against young girls. Bowles (2013) repeatedly exposed just-weaned female rats to sexually aggressive and experienced adult male rats on the males’ home territory (30 minutes every 3 days for 7 days in total), during which the males were observed to attempt to mount and penetrate the female. The females were visibly resistant to re-enter the cage and ‘vocalized audibly during the encounter’. Unsurprisingly, these experiences were found to interfere with the young female rats’ subsequent ability to learn. In a later study (Shors et al 2016), the team placed 35-day old pubescent female rats (weighing 120-220g) with 2 different sexually experienced adult males (aged 120–160 days and weighing 400-700g) daily for 30 minutes, one at a time, alternating every other day for 8 consecutive days. During the encounters the adult males aggressively approached, pinned down and attempted to mount the pubescent female rats, with some penetration occurring even though the females’ vaginas were not yet fully open. Again, the authors found that exposure to the male rats’ violence reduced learning, and also the subsequent development of maternal behaviour. Meanwhile, to maximise the potential for sexual violence, a German team (de Oliveira et al 2022) ensured that the male rats in their experiment were sexually frustrated by first placing them with receptive females and then exchanging these for non-receptive females who were left with the males for periods of ten-minutes.
At Safer Medicines Trust we usually focus on the use of animal models to develop pharmaceutical products, but in fact many of these studies sought to justify their research by claiming that their findings might one day lead to therapies for abused women or children. This is biological reductionism at its most absurd. Child abuse and male violence against women and girls are crimes deeply rooted in patriarchal social systems and intimately connected to sex inequalities as well as social, cultural, structural and economic factors. It is preposterous to imagine that these crimes can be addressed by examining the brains of animals and equally ridiculous to believe that what is found in these animals’ brains can be translated to humans and the complex social environments in which we live.
Biological reductionism has consequences. One is that it encourages a focus on individuals rather than social structures. In defence of his animal model of child sexual abuse Vogt even refers to ‘child abuse disorder’, as if the sexual abuse of children is a neurological disorder of individuals rather than a grave social problem (Vogt 2017). Another study (Poirier et al 2013) endeavoured to identify female behaviour that might modify the impact of male aggression, and the authors expressed a hope for clinical interventions to make women more resilient after suffering violence. Thus the focus turns to modifying individuals to enable them to cope with violence, rather than attempting to prevent violence in the first place.
Clearly then, another consequence of biological reductionism is distraction from the real causes of problems, with a resulting misdirection of resources. If resources are wasted on trying to identify therapeutic targets with the aim of medicating the victims of sexual violence, those resources are not available for approaches that will actually make a difference: societal approaches such as education, prevention, social support, and policy, cultural and structural changes. Unfortunately, biological reductionism and the medicating of social ills is at the heart of many animal models, not just these ones (e.g. animal models of obesity, depression, substance use).
Science itself is a social endeavour. It is conducted for the benefit of the public, and mostly at taxpayers’ expense. As poll after poll shows, the majority of the public strongly disapproves of animal experimentation and wants to see it ended. It certainly does not consent to the cruel and abhorrent practices reported in these studies. Yet all of these studies claimed to conform with the regulations and guidelines specified by the authors’ institutions and most gained ethical approval from the appropriate institutional committees (it is not clear whether the study by Bowles gained ethical approval). All were funded, including through grants obtained from national funding bodies such as the NIH. How can this be when we are continually told that animal studies are only approved when the research is absolutely necessary and there is no alternative? None of these studies produced information that will ever have even the slightest impact on survivors of abuse and sexual violence.
We did not conduct a systematic or exhaustive search for these studies; some were known to us and others we found as part of a quick scoping exercise. Doubtless a more comprehensive search would generate further disturbing examples. Such studies fall within the category of basic research, i.e. research conducted to satisfy scientists’ curiosity. Basic research is conducted behind the closed doors of universities and other academic institutions where oversight and accountability are minimal. In 2023, more UK animals were used in basic research than in applied and regulatory research combined. Yet most transition efforts focus squarely on regulatory research.
These experiments provide disturbing insight into the minds of those who conceive, fund, approve and conduct them. Against such a backdrop it can come as no surprise trust in science is plummeting. Each of these morally repugnant and scientifically indefensible studies indicates an egregious failure of regulation and needs to be roundly condemned by the scientific community, including those working so hard to perpetuate the use of animals in research. Certainly no further studies of this nature should be approved or funded. To do so would risk bringing science – and especially the use of animals in science – into further disrepute.
References
Sun M, Symons GF, Spitz G, O’Brien WT, Baker TL, Fan J, Martins BD, Allen J, Giesler LP, Mychasiuk R, van Donkelaar P. Pathophysiology, blood biomarkers, and functional deficits after intimate partner violence-related brain injury: Insights from emergency department patients and a new rat model. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 2025 Jan 1;123:383-96.
Weathington JM, Strahan JA, Cooke BM. Social experience induces sex-specific fos expression in the amygdala of the juvenile rat. Hormones and behavior. 2012 Jul 1;62(2):154-61.
Cordero MI, Poirier GL, Marquez C, Veenit V, Fontana X, Salehi B, Ansermet F, Sandi C. Evidence for biological roots in the transgenerational transmission of intimate partner violence. Translational psychiatry. 2012 Apr;2(4):e106-.
Bowles LM. Sexual conspecific aggression response (SCAR): A novel animal model for sexual abuse in young women. Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies; 2013.
Poirier GL, Cordero MI, Sandi C. Female vulnerability to the development of depression-like behavior in a rat model of intimate partner violence is related to anxious temperament, coping responses, and amygdala vasopressin receptor 1a expression. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience. 2013 May 1;7:35.
Shors TJ, Tobόn K, DiFeo G, Durham DM, Chang HY. Sexual Conspecific Aggressive Response (SCAR): a model of sexual trauma that disrupts maternal learning and plasticity in the female brain. Scientific reports. 2016 Jan 25;6(1):18960.
Vogt BA, Vogt LJ, Sikes RW. A nociceptive stress model of adolescent physical abuse induces contextual fear and cingulate nociceptive neuroplasticities. Brain Structure and Function. 2018 Jan;223(1):429-48.
Vogt BA. Reverse Translation of Child Abuse to an Animal Model. Med Res Innov, 2017; 1(6): 1-3. https://www.oatext.com/reverse-translation-of-child-abuse-to-an-animal-model.php
de M. Oliveira VE, de Jong TR, Neumann ID. Modelling sexual violence in male rats: the sexual aggression test (SxAT). Translational psychiatry. 2022 May 18;12(1):207.
Table of studies, citations, approvals and funding
Click for larger version
