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THE USE OF SELECTED ANAESTHETIC DRUGS IN SEARCH OF A METHOD FOR IMPROVING EARTHWORMS’ WELFARE
 
Więcej
Ukryj
1
Department of Biological Bases of Agriculture and Environmental Education, Faculty of Biology and Agriculture, Rzeszów University, Ćwiklińskiej 2, 25-601 Rzeszów, Poland
 
2
Department of Radioligands, Faculty of Pharmacy, Collegium Medicum, Jagiellonian University, Medyczna 9, 30- 688 Kraków, Poland
 
3
Department of Evolutionary Immunology, Institute of Zoology, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 9, 30-387 Kraków, Poland
 
 
Data publikacji: 10-07-2013
 
 
J. Ecol. Eng. 2013; 14(3):83-88
 
SŁOWA KLUCZOWE
STRESZCZENIE
This paper describes selected effects of body contact of earthworms Dendrobaena veneta Rosa with local anaesthetic (LA) drugs used for human anesthesia (lidocaine and prilocaine) and anaesthetics for aquatic animals (MS-222). The findings showed safe and effective immobilization of earthworms with prilocaine at a concentration of 0.25-1%. At the applied concentrations lidocaine was safe, but less effective. On the other hand, MS-222, at the applied concentrations had a strongly irritating effect for earthworms and induced convulsive body movements connected with a discharge of coelomic fluid. The results may be relevant both for improving the welfare of earthworms during experiments and for the organization of research involving testing drugs on invertebrates. In this case, by using earthworms as an experimental model and by applying the method for measuring their mobility after contact with anaesthetics, which has been described in this article, it might be possible to replace experiments on guinea pigs, rabbits, rats and mice, which are expensive and require an approval of an ethics committee, with laboratory tests on earthworms.
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