Behavioral research using animals often involves procedures that cause stress, fear, or deprivation in service of studying the very states being induced.
Behavioral neuroscience faces a fundamental tension: to study fear, pain, or depression, researchers must induce those states in animals. The scientific justification must be weighed against the certainty of suffering caused. Many classic models — forced swim test, tail suspension — are increasingly challenged both on welfare grounds and because they have poor translational validity to human conditions.