Dr. Vance conducts laboratory research on non-human primates to investigate the long-term cognitive and social effects of chronic synthetic cathinone (a class of recreational stimulants) exposure. She administered escalating daily doses of the stimulant to 32 adolescent squirrel monkeys while housing them in individual, highly restricted sensory-deprivation cages for eight weeks. Following this period, Dr. Vance released these monkeys into a large semi-natural enclosure containing an established, drug-free social troop. The stimulant-exposed squirrel monkeys displayed highly erratic, repetitive stereotypic movements (such as compulsive self-clasping) and severe cognitive deficits during foraging tasks, resulting in their violent rejection, harassment, and exclusion from feeding platforms by the dominant members of the troop.
To what extent are animal laboratory experiments appropriate to study the effects of recreational drugs? You must make reference to the context in your answer.
Practise Edexcel A Level Psychology Content with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 1,059 questions covering Issues around drug taking, Biological explanations of drug addiction, Learning explanations of drug addiction, Treatments for drug addiction, Anti-drug campaign and strategies, Individual differences, and Developmental psychology, matched to the Edexcel A Level Psychology (9PS0) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
