Electric foot shock

Another behavioral approach used to assess aspects of anxiety in animals relies on conflict paradigms in combination with punishment, mostly induced by electric foot shock. Due to ethical and also ethological considerations, paradigms based on electric shock are less often used than tests for unconditioned anxiety. However, it has been hypothesized that behavioral expressions displayed in tests for unconditioned and conditioned anxiety may reflect profoundly different aspects of anxiety (File 1995 Griebel 1996 Millan and Brocco 2003). Thus, shock paradigms are quite frequently included in behav-... 

Unpredictability also is a central feature in the concept of learned helplessness. This concept, using uncontrollable shock, was introduced by Overmier and Seligman (1967) and is based on the observation that animals exposed to an invariable stressor such as electric foot shock, which, due to the experimental set-up, is uncontrollable in nature, developed behavioral deficits. As first shown by Weiss (1968), rats exposed to uncontrollable shock showed significant weight loss due to decreased food and water intake. Moreover, these animals spent more time immobile in the forced swim test, and they revealed altered sleep patterns as well as a weakened response to previously rewarding brain stimulation, i.e., anhedonia (Henn et al. 1985 Weiss 1991). Importantly, these changes are not seen in animals that receive the same shocks but can exert control over their duration. 

In this category of models the animal learns a performance, typically to abstain from a behavior that it would normally display according to its natural and current tendency. For example, in the so-called Vogel test a partly water-deprived and thirsty rat learns that, during a signaled period, every lick at the water spout will be followed by a mild electric foot-shock. This sequence induces anxiety and an untreated (control) animal will abstain from drinking. However, animals pretreated with anxiolytic drugs will overcome their inhibition and tolerate at least some of the shocks and drink even when punished. 

Rats are trained to press one of two choice levers to avoid or to escape electric foot shock which is delivered intermittently beginning 5 s after the start... 

Increased sensitivity to painful stimuli has been reported in animals subjected to dietary deprivation of tryptophan.26 28 Rats maintained on a tryptophan-deficient diet showed increased sensitivity to painful electric foot shock.27 Also, some studies have revealed that in humans tryptophan causes decreased pain perception.25... 

The communication box was used to provide psychological stress. The box consisted of small compartments (10 x 10 cm) equipped with either an electric foot-shock floor or a non-shock floor, and the electric shock and the non-shock floor were placed reciprocally. A mouse (sender) placed on an electric shock floor made emotional responses when charged with electricity to the floor for 10 sec at intervals of 50 sec and a mouse (responder) placed in a non-shock floor were exposed only to psychological stress. The electric current for the shock was increased stepwise from 1.6 mA to 2.0 mA at the rate of 0.2 mA per 1 h over 3 h. Sender mice were changed daily to naive mice in order to avoid reduced emotional responses to the electric shock due to adaptation to repeated exposures. Responder mice were daily administered with either AGE (10 ml/kg) or water (control) one hr prior to the 3 h emotional stress for 4 days. On day 1, responder mice were immunized with sheep red blood cells (SRBC, 1 X10 ) after the 3 h stress. After the last day of stress exposure, the spleen weight and number of spleen cells were measured and the number of anti-SRBC plaque-forming-cells (PEC) were assayed. 

Perhaps the best site is that of Amnesty International at http //www.amnesty.org. Its page http //web.amnesty.orgAibrary/eng-313/index cites many dozens of case studies, a significant fraction of which involve electricity. Or type electricity into their search engine (almost hidden at the foot of the page), and be shocked at the number of so-called friendly and civilized countries that employ torture Israel, Indonesia, the USA, and many of the new countries of Europe. Be warned some of the details are horrific - electricity is a very efficient way of generating pain. 

The primary standard covering minimum requirements for the manufacturing and testing of rubber insulating gloves for the protection of workers from electrical shock. ASTM F 1818, Specification for Foot Protection for Chainsaw Users... 

Employers must make sure that each affected employee uses protective footwear when working in areas where there is a danger of foot injuries due to falling or rolling objects, or objects piercing the sole, or when the use of protective footwear will protect the affected employee from an electrical hazard, such as a static-discharge or electric-shock hazard, that remains after the employer takes other necessary protective measures. 

In addition to revising the Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution, and the Electrical Protective Equipment standards, OSHA also revised the General Industry Foot Protection standard to clarify that an employer must ensure that workers use protective footwear as a supplementary form of protection when the use of protective footwear will protect the workers from electrical hazards, such as static-discharge or electric-shock hazards, that remain after the employer takes other necessary protective measures. 

FIGURE 22.1 Most lethal paths for electric shock (a) hand-to-hand path, (b) hand-to-foot path. 

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