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Rat Robot Beats on Live Rats to Make Them Depressed [View all]
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/medical-robots/ratbot-beats-on-live-rats-to-make-them-depressed
Rat Robot Beats on Live Rats to Make Them Depressed
POSTED BY: Evan Ackerman / Wed, February 13, 2013
One of the two rats in the above picture isn't really a rat. One of the two rats in the above picture is, in fact, a robot. Look closely and you can just barely figure it out. Meanwhile, the rat that isn't a robot is seriously depressed, because that's what this robot specializes in: rat depression.
I should hope that you're wondering right now just why they heck someone would design a robot that exists only to instill depression in rats, since that seems kind of terrifying, to be honest. Fortunately, there's a simple answer: we need depressed rats to be able to test drugs that treat depression. Before trying drugs out on humans, they get tested on animals, and if you think you've got a drug that can safely make depressed people less depressed, it first needs to be able to safely make depressed rats less depressed, and that requires a bunch of depressed rats.
There are already some accepted ways to make a normal rat into a depressed rat. For example, you can force it to swim for long periods, or you can put it into a box and give it electric shocks. Do these things often enough, and you'll be left with one seriously unhappy rat. However, the problem with these methods is that humans don't usually experience depression like this: with some exceptions that nobody likes to talk about, prolonged swimming and shocks aren't the cause of most depression in humans, and researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo are trying to come up with a more accurate model by causing depression in rats with other (robotic) rats.
This robot, called WR-3, is basically an attack robot. It has three modes, or "behavior generation algorithms," which include chasing, continuous attacking, and interactive attacking. Chasing means that WR-3 will attempt to maintain a minimum distance from the rat but not actually attack it. Continuous attacking is, well, continuous attacking with aggressive body motions and physical contact. Interactive attacking only attacks the rat whenever it moves at set distance, which (to me) is the most sinister mode of all.
<snip>
Rat Robot Beats on Live Rats to Make Them Depressed
POSTED BY: Evan Ackerman / Wed, February 13, 2013
One of the two rats in the above picture isn't really a rat. One of the two rats in the above picture is, in fact, a robot. Look closely and you can just barely figure it out. Meanwhile, the rat that isn't a robot is seriously depressed, because that's what this robot specializes in: rat depression.
I should hope that you're wondering right now just why they heck someone would design a robot that exists only to instill depression in rats, since that seems kind of terrifying, to be honest. Fortunately, there's a simple answer: we need depressed rats to be able to test drugs that treat depression. Before trying drugs out on humans, they get tested on animals, and if you think you've got a drug that can safely make depressed people less depressed, it first needs to be able to safely make depressed rats less depressed, and that requires a bunch of depressed rats.
There are already some accepted ways to make a normal rat into a depressed rat. For example, you can force it to swim for long periods, or you can put it into a box and give it electric shocks. Do these things often enough, and you'll be left with one seriously unhappy rat. However, the problem with these methods is that humans don't usually experience depression like this: with some exceptions that nobody likes to talk about, prolonged swimming and shocks aren't the cause of most depression in humans, and researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo are trying to come up with a more accurate model by causing depression in rats with other (robotic) rats.
This robot, called WR-3, is basically an attack robot. It has three modes, or "behavior generation algorithms," which include chasing, continuous attacking, and interactive attacking. Chasing means that WR-3 will attempt to maintain a minimum distance from the rat but not actually attack it. Continuous attacking is, well, continuous attacking with aggressive body motions and physical contact. Interactive attacking only attacks the rat whenever it moves at set distance, which (to me) is the most sinister mode of all.
<snip>
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