Bored to distraction

The barren environment of the laboratory is associated with a number of physical and psychological pathologies among animals used in laboratory experiments. New Scientist recently reported on a lethal experiment ("Bored monkeys make for stupid monkeys" 11/19/05) demonstrated how "standard" and "enriched" environments affected adult monkeys' brains. I think that "bored" is, at best, an understatement for what these animals experienced, but I suppose word choice is the sort of thing that comes with editorial power.

I simply had to respond to the fact that the ethical implications of such experiments were sidestepped in an opinion piece printed in the most recent issue: Bored to distraction.