As a part of a student project, a new medication for Alzheimer\'s disease was te

Question

As a part of a student project, a new medication for Alzheimer's disease was tested on a rat maze where each arm of the maze was baited with food. The rats were trained to know that once they vistited a particular arm of the maze and retrieved food, it was not replaced. The experimenter counted the number of times the rats visited the same arm of the maze more than once.These instances were called memory errors. Raats (N=24) were randomly assigned to groups: eight of them to a placebo(saline) injection; eight to a dose of 5mg of the drug; and eight rats to a dose of 10 mg. The statistical test turned out significant, and it was discovered that the group that got 10 mg made significantly fewer memory errors than the other two groups. It was concluded that the drug may help people with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but further testing would be needed.   What type of study was this ? What statistical test should have been used ? Identify the ttwo key variables in the relationship that is being tested. If possible, say which was the independent variable and which was the dependent variable. Rank order the problem(s) with the reporters interpretation of the research.

Explanation / Answer

The independent Variable in this study is the drugs that is administered to the rats and the dependent variable is the number of memory errors committed by the rats. The rats were subjugated to randomly assigned clinical trail. Between-subject experimental design was implemented to carry out the experiment, where the rats were randomly assigned to the treatment condition( rats which received the drugs) and control condition (where rats did not receive the drugs.Instead, they were administered saline solution). The interpretation of the research has multiple problems.Foremost, the drugs were administered on rats instead of performing clinical trials on humans. This reduces the validity of the research and reliability of the drugs effectiveness on human population who has Alzheimer. Secondly, animal exploitation for clinical experiment is unethical as it is cruel and debases humanity. Beside, not all experiment that are tested on animals is reliable, as we differs from them on cellular and metabolic level, which makes them a poor choice for equating them on cerebral and anatomic level with humans.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse A
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.