This chapter discusses the use of animals to explore issues relating to human cognition, emotion, volition, and their pathologies. Researchers who use animal models in their work point to similarities in the genomes of the two species, in the structure of mouse and human brain, in patterns of brain activation, in neural mechanisms at the cellular and molecular level, in responses to drugs and so forth, perhaps with reference to evolution and the principle of conservation across species when it comes to the most basic aspects of living organisms, including their brains. The chapter then examines four interconnected themes: the question of the artificiality of the laboratory situation within which animal experiments are conducted; the idea of a model in behavioral and psychiatric research; the specificity of the human and the elision of history and human sociality; and the problem of translation.
