When it comes to scientific breakthroughs, not all of them are pretty. “You need to break a few eggs to get an omelet,” as some people say. One of the harshest examples of that is the famous decerebrate cat experiment. This test was designed to pinpoint areas of the brain that are responsible for performing the low-level functions that keep us alive.
The subject was a cat that had most of its brain removed, except for a small section of the brain stem. Scientists then placed the cat on a treadmill. They found that even when it was missing most of its brain, the animal was still able to demonstrate multiple gait patterns.
Needless to say, the cat didn’t survive for very long after the experiment.
(via Reddit)
While I feel bad for the cat in this situation, I suppose that its suffering did yield some interesting scientific results. Still…I feel like researchers could have figured that out without scooping out the poor cat’s brain.