Researchers at Central Michigan University use rodents and other animals to find solutions to behavioral and medical issues found in humans. Behavioral analyst Eric French found his niche at labs in CMU in his early twenties. Central Michigan Life sat down with the Oblong, Illinois graduate student to talk about his research on rats and pigeons in the CMU Operant Lab.

How do you feel about animal testing? Are you okay with the ethical implications?

To a degree. I would not let just anybody work with my rats. We have to maintain a high standard; one because we don’t want any protests, and two because healthy, well taken care of rats give the best data. If I ever saw anybody mistreating my rats they wouldn't be working in a lab again. I’m not okay with just anybody doing it, it has to be done with care. But if it is done with care, then yes, I think it’s perfectly ethical.

What is the project you are working on right now?

We’re looking at the presence and severity of hangovers in young rats as compared to old rats. How we tell that is we give them a bottle of alcohol for about 30 minutes a day, and record how much they drink. Of course if you’re hungover the next day, alcohol is probably not the thing you want. If they drank a lot yesterday and didn’t drink a lot today, we infer that is the hangover effect. We don’t think we’ll see that in young rats, but in old rats we expect to.

What are you trying to learn from your study?

The theory goes that if alcoholism starts when you’re young, it may be because you don’t experience these hangovers. We just don't think young rats and young humans have neural pathways that respond to hangovers.

So students have worse hangovers to look forward to?

That’s the other thing, if you drink a lot as a young person, it may inhibit the development of those neural pathways. So even if you continue to drink while you’re older, it won’t hurt as much because they just never developed, whereas if you took somebody that is 21-years-old and had their first drink of alcohol, they’ve developed those pathways.

What was your best project as an undergraduate student?

We did one study on traumatic brain injury. It got a big grant from the military. Ever since the war in Iraq, they’re interested in traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder. We give half the rats a brain injury and leave the other half uninjured. Then we measure their impulses, like responses to fox urine. Rats hate fox urine.

Did you always know you were interested in psychology, human or otherwise?

I just stumbled upon it. I had a 2.5 GPA in high school. I was a good college student though. I started at community college, took a psychology class, and all of a sudden it was the first time I found myself reading the textbook outside of class. I took a general interest, but I didn’t want to be a counselor, so I didn’t see it going anywhere. I plan to work in academia and continue my research. I’ve been a teacher's assistant and I’ve taught before, but mainly I enjoy the research. I’d like to stay with rats and pigeons.