Adhering to the humane principles in studying physiology is a rather complicated problem in modern biological and medical education. There is a wide-spread opinion that laboratory animals can be used in experiments for teaching purposes if there is a definite need and the experiment can not be replaced by virtual simulation. Republic of Belarus passed the Convention on biological diversity in 1992. On the basis of the 1992 Convention, Belarus has some duties which were formulated in the “National Strategy and Plan of Actions directed toward Preservation and Sustainable Use of Biological Diversity in Belarus” (1998).
Interrelations of society and nature, society and living objects changed during last half of the century, and these changes must be taken into account when planning physiological experiments. Undoubtedly, a number of experiments which involve inflicting heavy damage to the health, and possibly a threat to the life of large laboratory animals, such as dogs and rabbits, in student’s presence, has become unacceptable. Therefore, stereotypes in the teacher’s perception must be broken, and each demonstration must be planned with respect to ethical concerns. For example, the established practice of teaching “Physiology of excitatory tissues” involves experiments (Galvani’s experiments) on frog nerve-muscle preparation separated from a live frog in student’s presence (“Physiology of the Central Nervous System” by Smirnov V., Yakovlev V., Moscow, 2005). We think the above experiments may be used in teaching specialists like biologists and physicians, but not, for example, future psychologists who are also enrolled in neurophysiology classes. It is our firm opinion that the laboratory works of psychology students must be organized in a different way, making use of virtual simulations, instead of experimenting with living animals.
We suggest reorganizing the curriculum insofar as physiological experiments are concerned, with the aim of applying humane principles in animal treatment, maintaining biological diversity, and substituting certain types of experiments with virtual simulations more frequently.