Choice of Animal Subject

A program of research will study the effects of a new psychotropic substance on human brain chemistry.  After the substance is administered, the animal subjects will be immobilized and electrodes will be attached.  Then, once encephalography data has been obtained, the animals will be sacrificed and dissected to examine for changes in brain physiology.  Although dogs are deemed adequate subjects, use of primates, such as monkeys, would produce more persuasive results that would generalize to humans with greater validity.  Should the project use dogs or monkeys?

J1G says:  Whatever happened to mice and rats? We have learned a lot about human neural function by studying it in little bitty critters with short lifespans and less pet-appeal.

K5R says:  There are strict laboratory animal scientific guidelines for the use of non-human primates in experiments.  "Greater validity or easier generalization of results to human subjects" is definitely not an appropriate or valid reason for using primate subjects.  Rather, there has to be a valid reason for exclusion of other routine laboratory animal species.  If the dog is termed adequate, it should be the default for this experiment, and if the experiment could be performed equally as well with rodents, then they should be the default choice.  The choice of primate in this case would be declined by any Animal Care & Use Committee at any research institution in the US.

P3L says:  To demonstrate the adequacy of dogs for this experiment, there must be control experiments documenting that the neurotropic effects obtained by known drugs are similar to those seen in humans.  If not, then another animal species is required.  Although the theoreticians do not consider cost to be a valid factor, those in the real world have budgets to satisfy.  If rodents would suffice, they would be the model of choice.