The Rats That Were Housed Like Neighbours
A famous rodent experiment is often said to prove that isolation causes addiction. The leap from rats to people may carry more weight than the data can bear.
In the late 1970s, researchers at Simon Fraser University found that rats housed in a large colony with toys and companions drank far less sweetened morphine solution than rats kept alone in small cages. Some commentators conclude from this that isolation, and not the drug itself, is the chief cause of human addiction. This conclusion assumes that the drinking habits of rats in the experiment reliably indicate how addiction develops in people.
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