(Protocol) Preferred Reporting Items for Resistance Exercise Studies (PRIRES): An Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews, Guidelines, and Position Stands for Item Extraction

BackgroundThe issues of replication and scientific transparency have been raised in exercise and sports science research. A potential means to address the replication crisis and enhance research reliability is to improve reporting quality and transparency. This study aims to formulate a reporting checklist as a supplement to the existing reporting guidelines, specifically for resistance exercise studies.MethodsSystematic reviews/meta-analyses, guidelines, and position stands related to resistance exercise since inception will be searched in PubMed and Scopus. Only studies published in English will be included. Two authors will independently screen titles/abstracts and then full-text articles against the inclusion criteria. Basic data will be extracted by the same two authors independently. The same two authors will independently extract items from systematic reviews, guidelines, and position stands that could potentially influence training efficiency, physiological/psychological functions, other health-related variables, or replication. Summaries of the findings and items extracted from the included systematic reviews/meta-analyses and included position stands or guidelines will be presented as tables. Using items adapted from the existing checklist Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template (CERT), a preferred reporting checklist for resistance exercise studies will be formulated. The protocol for this study was developed according to the reporting checklist for umbrella reviews published by Onishi and Furukawa in 2016.DiscussionThe proposed study is expected to build a reporting checklist with a high level of evidence, which can improve the reporting quality of future resistance exercise studies.Ethics and disseminationApproval from a human/animal research ethics committee is not required. The findings of the proposed study will be disseminated through conference presentations, our lab’s website in plain language, and, if possible, letters to the editor in peer-reviewed journals related to sport and exercise science.RegistrationThis study is registered with the EQUATOR Network under the title “Preferred Reporting Items for Resistance Exercise Studies (PRIRES).” PROSPERO registration number: CRD42021235259.

SARS-CoV-2 Infection Challenge Experiments in Nonhuman Primates: An Ethical Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated massive investment in biomedical research with the aims of understanding the disease and developing effective vaccine and therapeutic interventions. What role should animal research play in this scientific endeavor? Both the urgency to evaluate candidate interventions for human use and growing societal concern about ethical treatment of (nonhuman) animals put into question the justifiability of animal research as a precursor to clinical trials. Yet forgoing animal research in the rush to undertake human testing might expose human research participants to unacceptable risks. In this article, we apply a recently developed framework of principles for animal research ethics in exploring ethical questions raised by a SARS-CoV-2 infection challenge experiment involving rhesus macaques, which evaluated the protective efficacy of the mRNA-1273 vaccine that was recently approved for emergency use. Our aim is to illuminate the ethical issues while introducing, and illustrating the use of, the framework.

“Eek! A Rat!”

Rats are often despised. In what way does such aversion affect moral deliberation, and if so, how should we accommodate any distorting effects on our normative judgements? These questions are explored in this chapter with regard to recent proposals in (1) the ethics of pest management and (2) animal political theory. While ethical frameworks and tools used in the context of animal research can improve moral deliberation with regard to pest management, we argue based on psychological factors regarding the perception of rats that before implementing these methods in either animal research or pest management, one needs to ascertain that rats are owed genuine moral consideration. With regard to animal political theory, we identify three issues: truth-aptness, perception, and moral motivation. To complement as well as address some of the issues found in both animal research ethics and animal political theory, we explore compassion. Starting from compassion, we develop a pragmatist and interspecies understanding of morality, including a shift from an anthropocentric to a multispecies epistemology, and a distributed rather than an individual notion of moral agency. We need to engage with the experience of others, including rats and those who perceive these animals as pests, as well as pay attention to the specific way individual agents are embedded in particular socio-ecological settings so as to promote compassionate action.

Effects of Dacryodes edulis Leaf Extract on Pain and Inflammation

Background: Dacryodes edulis leaf extract is used in traditional settings in management of many disease conditions including pain and inflammation. However, these empirical claims have not been evaluated scientifically. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the effect of ethanol leaf extract of Dacryodes edulis on pain and inflammation using rodents. Materials and Methods: Writhing test using acetic acid for induction of pain and tail-immersion in temperature controlled water were used to study the effect on pain sensation while xylene-induced ear oedema and carrageenan-induced paw oedema were used for the effect of Dacryodes edulis on inflammation. Male mice divided into seven groups and three different doses of extract viz,100mg/kg, 200mg/kg and 400mg/kg based on the results of the acute toxicity study and the mean effective dose study, ED50 were used for the study. Ethical approval was obtained from the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Calabar Animal Research Ethics Committee with number: 012PA31116. Results: 400mg/kg extract showed significant analgesic activity having 75% inhibition of pain in the writhing test while aspirin showed 80% inhibition of pain. The extract also significantly (p<0.05) prolonged flick latency period comparable to morphine in tail immersion test. The extract caused 72% inhibition of xylene induced ear oedema compared to 91% of dexamethasone. Similarly it showed comparable activity (p<0.05) with aspirin in the carrageenan-induced paw oedema. Conclusion: Dacryodes edulis leaf extract has activity against pain and inflammation. This validates its application in management of inflammation and pain in local settings.

Virtue Ethics and Laboratory Animal Research

This article appeals to virtue ethics to help guide laboratory animal research by considering the role of character and flourishing in these practices. Philosophical approaches to animal research ethics have typically focused on animal rights or on the promotion of welfare for all affected, while animal research itself has been guided in its practice by the 3Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement). These different approaches have sometimes led to an impasse in debates over animal research where the philosophical approaches are focused on whether or when animal studies are justifiable, while the 3Rs assume a general justification for animal work but aim to reduce harm to sentient animals and increase their welfare in laboratory spaces. Missing in this exchange is a moral framework that neither assumes nor rejects the justifiability of animal research and focuses instead on the habits and structures of that work. I shall propose a place for virtue ethics in laboratory animal research by considering examples of relevant character traits, the moral significance of human-animal bonds, mentorship in the laboratory, and the importance of animals flourishing beyond mere welfare.

Holding Animal-Based Research to Our Highest Ethical Standards: Re-seeing Two Emergent Laboratory Practices and the Ethical Significance of Research Animal Dissent

“Animal-based research should be held to the highest ethical standards” is becoming an increasingly common refrain. Though I think such a commitment is what we should expect of those using animals in science, much as we would if the participants were humans, some key insights of discussions in applied ethics and moral philosophy only seem to slowly impact what reasonably qualifies as the highest standards in animal research ethics. Early in my paper, I will explain some of these insights and loosely tie them to animal research ethics. Two emergent practices in laboratory animal science, positive reinforcement training and “rehoming,” will then be discussed, and I will defend the view that both should be mandatory on no more ethical grounds than what is outlined in the first section. I will also provide reasons for foregrounding the moral significance of dissent and why, most of the time, an animal research subject’s sustained dissent should be respected. Taken together, what I will defend promises to change how at least some animals are used in science and what happens to them afterwards. But I will also show how an objective ethics requires nothing less. Ignoring these constraints in the scientific use of animals comes at the cost of abandoning any claim to adhering to our highest ethical standards and, arguably, any claim to the moral legitimacy of such scientific use.