ELi5: Rats seem to be the gold standard for behavioral lab experiments – why? Other than quantity, what makes rats good test subjects in relation to humans?
In: Biology
Objectively, testing on primates would be better and more accurate to the effect a drug would have on humans. The problem is mostly logistics.
However, if you want to test say 10 different drug mixtures, each with 10 different dose sizes, and you want to have a sample size of 100 individuals, suddenly you need 10,000 individuals.
It’s far easier to house and maintain 10,000 rats than it is to maintain 10,000 monkeys.
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