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Neil J. MacLusky, Euthanasia in Endocrinology: The Choices Get More Complex, Endocrinology, Volume 150, Issue 6, 1 June 2009, Pages 2505–2506, https://doi.org/10.1210/en.2009-0430
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In 1927, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg published a paper that developed the principle of imprecision or uncertainty in measuring the position and momentum of subatomic particles; simply stated, “the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, … and vice versa.” This principle reflects a fact of life that most scientists learn at an early age: precise experimental measurements may only be possible under conditions in which the properties of the system can no longer be completely defined. For endocrinologists, the problems are particularly acute because of the sensitivity of endocrine systems to metabolic, sensory, or pharmacologically induced perturbation. This makes it difficult to study these systems in vivo, without introducing the potential for experimentally induced error. The challenge is to develop procedures that induce as little disturbance of normal hormonal interactions as possible.
Experiments involving euthanasia present a particular problem because of the need to balance ethical concerns in the treatment of animals with avoidance of procedures that might alter the experimental results. Most countries have now adopted guidelines for research that stress the principle that animals should not be unnecessarily exposed to pain and suffering. In the euthanasia guidelines of the American Veterinary Medical Association, for example, euthanasia is defined as the act of inducing humane death in an animal, “with an emphasis on making the death as painless and distress free as possible” (1). Ensuring that death is distress free, however, may be possible only by depressing consciousness, through modulation of neuronal activity in the central nervous system. This is hard to do without also affecting the hypothalamic and limbic brain centers that normally regulate neuroendocrine function. Measures to achieve painless euthanasia may, therefore, themselves alter the endocrine endpoints under study, particularly if those endpoints are sensitive to changes in neuroendocrine hormone secretion.
