Get to Know Your Local Laboratories: The Grace Lab

Image: Rat with a neural recording device implant

The laboratory of Anthony A Grace does many different kinds of research involving the intense suffering of mice and rats. Types of studies in the Grace lab include fear research, pain research, intense cold exposure, chronic stress exposure, and brain lesions. Many of these studies are rarely done on other species of animals due to the cruel nature of the methods involved. However, mice and rats are not covered under the already weak protections of the Animal Welfare Act, so they often suffer greatly in research like Grace's. The use of these animals also allows Grace to put out publication after publication, increasing his ability to acquire more grants to continue causing animal suffering with his research. Many of Grace's grants over the past 12 years have come from the National Institutes of Mental Health using tax payer dollars.

Although rats and mice get a bad reputations in some cultures, they are sentient animals who laugh when they play, who are good mothers, and are intelligent and affectionate. They are the most popular research animals, partially because they are not included in the animal welfare act restrictions but also because they learn quickly and are smart. They have a great capacity for suffering and do not deserve to suffer in laboratories any more than any other species of animal.

In one study, Grace and colleagues studied fear and pain [1]. They either caused nerve cell damage in rats using toxic drugs or cut connections in their brains. They then placed the rats in fear conditioning chambers which had electrified floors. They shocked the rats and measured their fear responses and pain sensitivities. Each animal was then killed and his brain was dissected.

In another study, the Grace lab used mice that were specifically bred with genetic mutations so that they lacked a gene responsible for various neurotransmitter (brain chemical) functions [2]. The removal of even one gene from an animal's system often causes severe disorders and/or suffering. The mice were killed and their brains were removed for dissection.

Another study by Grace and colleagues involved chronic cold exposure in order to create a very stressful environment for the animals [3]. They shaved most of the fur off of rats and then confined them to cages in a room of only 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Farenheit) for 14-17 days straight. This is very stressful for rats because they prefer a temperature of around 21 degrees Celcius (70 degrees Farenheit) and on top of this, their fur is shaved, increasing their level of cold and stress significantly. Grace and colleagues then examined the rats' behaviors to see how damaged they were by this stressful experience. The group then drilled holes in the heads of the stressed rats to implant brain cell recording devices in their heads. Afterward, the rats were killed and their brains were used in electrophysiological recording and dissected.

In another study, the Grace lab subjected rats to intensive surgeries to implant recording devices in their brains [4]. After only one week of recovery from these skull and brain surgeries, that rats were deprived of food to maintain a body weight of 85% and were given several behavioral tasks like repeatedly being place in mazes while their brains were recorded from. The lack of food creates motivation in the rats to do these unnatural tasks in lab environments because they receive food as a reward. The rats were then injected with drugs that changed their brain functioning. After these tests were over, the rats were killed and their brains were used in electrophysiological recording and dissected.

These are just a few of the multiple publications that Tony A Grace put out just last year. For each one of his papers published, Grace deliberately caused the suffering and death of multiple animals all on the tax payer's dime.
Tony Grace can be contacted in the following ways:
Work: Office: 570 Langley Hall
Telephone:412-624-4609
Fax:412-624-9198
E-mail: graceaa@pitt.edu

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References

[1] Stephanie Bissière, Nicolas Plachta, Daniel Hoyer, Kevin H. McAllister, Hans-Rudolf Olpe, Anthony A. Grace and John F. Cryan. (2008). The Rostral Anterior Cingulate Cortex Modulates the Efficiency of Amygdala-Dependent Fear Learning. Biological Psychiatry. 63(9). 821-831.

[2] S.P. Onn, M. Lin, J.-J. Liu and A.A. Grace. (2008). Dopamine and cyclic-AMP regulated phosphoprotein-32–dependent modulation of prefrontal cortical input and intercellular coupling in mouse accumbens spiny and aspiny neurons. Neuroscience. 151(3). 802-816.

[3] Jedema, H.P..P, Gold, S.J., Gonzalez-Burgos, G., Sved, A.F., Tobe, B.J., Wensel, T.G. and Grace, A.A. Chronic cold exposure increases RGS7 expression and decreases a2-autoreceptor-mediated inhibition of noradrenergic locus coeruleus neurons. European Journal of Neuroscience 27: 2433-2443, 2008.

[4] Goto, Y. and Grace, A.A. Dopamine modulation of hippocampal-prefrontal cortical interaction drives memory-guided behavior. Cerebral Cortex 18: 1407 – 1414, 2008.

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