While this image is beautiful,¹ it seems to have gone beyond the intended purpose of the original research on the mice. I understand publishing the original mouse brain image based on the striking images as an educational process and raising awareness of the experimental animals, technology, and the findings involved. However, arranging them in the kaleidoscope design appears to me to go beyond the original intent of the research and takes on the perspective of artistic expression.

I may be overly sensitive, however I want to raise awareness of experimental animals and the dependence we have on them for research in understanding and developing treatments for human diseases. Should the results of such animal research be used in artistic expression? The bioscience community accepts that animals should be used for research only within an ethical framework.²

Author Response

I appreciate the comment by Dr. Brenner regarding the brain kaleidoscope image.¹ Further to his comment, we would like to clarify that the image used to construct the kaleidoscope was from a dataset acquired for justifiable scientific purposes.³ The subsequent use of the image for artistic expression should not detract from the primary purpose of these data.

We would argue that medical research in general (not just animal research) should only be undertaken for good scientific reasons.

Editor’s Note

Dr. Brenner raises an important point about the ethical treatment of animals, a position with which we agree. As the text accompanying the image makes clear, this animal work was done to refine imaging techniques. The result, published elsewhere, had another benefit: it yielded beautiful images of the nervous system. Had the animal work been done solely for artistic purposes, one could raise ethical concerns; but providing a thought-provoking and esthetic image of the nervous system, using already-acquired material, seems felicitous and beneficial. The purpose of the occasional Visions section is to provide artistic images of a neurologic nature, for our edification.