Research and Human Health: Advancing Human Welfare Through Behavioral Science (Carroll 
and Overmier, 2001). 
The route to major medical advances is tortuous and full of surprises. Perhaps there is no 
clearer example of this complexity than that provided by the development of psychotropic 
drugs. Chlorpromazine, for example, revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia and truly 
alleviated human misery (Swazey, 1974). As Kety (1974) notes in his foreward to Swazey's 
book: 
One conclusion, immediately apparent and rather surprising, is that none of the crucial 
findings or pathways that led, over the course of a century, to the ultimate discovery of 
chlorpromazine would at first have been called relevant to the treatment of mental illness 
by even the most sophisticated judge. If scientists had decided in the middle of the last 
century [19 th ] to target research toward the treatment of schizophrenia, if they had been 
able to organize such a program, and if they had engaged the greatest minds, which of 
those crucial discoveries and pathways would they have supported as relevant to their 
goal? Certainly not the synthesis of phenothiazine by a chemist interested in methylene 
blue; nor the study of anaphylaxis in guinea pigs (which is more clearly related to 
asthma)... nor the study of the role of histamine in allergy and anaphylaxis and the 
search for antihistaminic drugs., .nor the studies on operant conditioning in animals 
[editors’ emphasis]; and not the search by an anesthesiologist for an antihistaminic- 
sympatholytic drug that might be useful in mitigating surgical shock. 
Of course, the development and testing of subsequent drugs that have helped so many of the 
mentally ill have relied heavily on laboratory animals. 
ANIMAL WELFARE 
Behavioral research on animals has benefited animals as well as humans. For the past 15 
years greater attention to the quality of the environment in which research and zoo animals 
live has resulted in improved animal welfare and more refined animal models for research. 
Increased environmental complexity, generally referred to as environmental enrichment, -has 
been shown to influence brain development (Walsh, 1981), memory, learning ability (e.g., 
Escorihuela et al., 1995), and problem-solving; to mitigate some of the effects of 
undernutrition and old age; to promote recovery from brain trauma (Van Rijzingen, 1995); to 
improve the reproductive success of captive animals (Carlstead and Shepherdson, 1994) and 
alter the development of atherosclerosis; and to decrease the expression of abnormal 
behaviors while increasing the diversity of normal behaviors exhibited (Bayne et ah, 1991; 
Duke, 1989; Gilloux et ah, 1992; van de Weerd et ah, 1997), thereby enhancing the 
psychological and physiological welfare of the animals. 
Similarly, knowledge gained through research on animal behavior has proved invaluable for 
the successful reintroduction of captive-born animals into the wild (Castro et ah, 1998; Miller 
20 
