Japanese Scientist Build Robotic Rat to Depress Lab Rats
Posted on February 13, 2013
Lab rats already have to endure many experiments in order for humans to learn new things. Now, they have to deal with a robotic rat that's sole purpose is to leave them depressed. Researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan decided to build a robot rat in order to stress out the lab rats.
New Scientist reports that the robot, named WR-3, was designed to irritate rats and depress them. WR-3 was put into a cage with two groups of 12 rats. One group of the rats was constantly harassed by WR-3 and the other group was intermittently attacked by WR-3 whenever they moved.
The goal of the stress inducing experiment appears to be to get the lab rats depressed so that they are ideal subjects to test antidepressants, a category of drugs designed to treat depression.