With this page InVitroJobs offers information about "future-oriented developments". In this section, we'll focus on developments which have the potential to replace animal use in a particular field in the near future.


Innovative imaging methods could replace animal use (e.g. the use of non-human primates) with human-specific, non-invasive techniques in several fields of cognitive neuroscience.

Here you find literature sources that lead to the abstract.

The imaging techniques, however, require further testing to be accepted as animal replacement methods. Currently there are no studies reported and no evaluations or validations are known.


1. Imaging Methods

Chojnacki, J., Staudt, T., Glass, B., Bingen, P., Engelhardt, J., Anders, M., Schneider, J.,  Müller, B., Hell, S. W. & Kräusslich, H.-G. (2012): Maturation-Dependent HIV-1 Surface Protein Redistribution Revealed by Fluorescence Nanoscopy. Science 338/6106: 524-528.

Downing, P., Liu, J., & Kanwisher, N. (2001): Testing cognitive models of visual attention with fMRI and MEG. Neuropsychologia, 39/12: 1329-1342.

Espy, M., Matlachov, A., Volegov, P., Mosher, J.C., & Kraus, R.H., Jr. (2005): SQUID-based simultaneous detection of NMR and biomagnetic signals at ultra-low magnetic fields. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 15: 635-639.

Haynes, J.D. & Rees, G. (2005): Predicting the orientation of invisible stimuli from activity in human primary visual cortex. Nat.Neurosci., 8/5: 686-691.

Heinz, A., Siessmeier, T., Wrase, J., Hermann, D., Klein, S., Grusser, S. M., Flor, H., Braus, D. F., Buchholz, H. G., Grunder, G., Schreckenberger, M., Smolka, M. N., Rosch, F., Mann, K., & Bartenstein, P. (2004): Correlation between dopamine D(2) receptors in the ventral striatum and central processing of alcohol cues and craving. Am J Psychiatry, 161/10: 1783-1789.

Hofner, N., Albrecht, H. H., Cassara, A. M., Curio, G., Hartwig, S., Haueisen, J., Hilschenz, I., Korber, R., Martens, S., Scheer, H. J., Voigt, J., Trahms, L., & Burghoff, M. (2011): Are brain currents detectable by means of low-field NMR? A phantom study. Magn Reson. Imaging 29/10: 1365-1373.

Kamitani, Y. & Tong, F. (2006): Decoding seen and attended motion directions from activity in the human visual cortex. Curr.Biol, 16/11: 1096-1102.

Kraus, R.H., Jr., Volegov, P., Matlachov, A., & Espy, M. (2008): Toward direct neural current imaging by resonant mechanisms at ultra-low field. Neuroimage., 39/1: 310-317.

Liangzhong Xiang, Bo Wang, Lijun Ji & Huabei Jiang (2013): 4-D Photoacoustic Tomography. Scientific Reports 3 : 1113, DOI: 10.1038/srep01113

Schindler, A. & Bartels, A. (2013): Parietal Cortex Codes for Egocentric Space beyond the Field of View. Current Biology 23, 1–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.06011.060

-> Neu: Tong, F. Harrison S. A., Dewey, J. A., Kamitani, Y (2013): Relationship between BOLD amplitude and pattern classification of orientation-selective activity in the human visual cortex. NeuroImage 63 (2012) 1212–1222.

Weizenecker, J., Gleich, B., Rahmer, J., Dahnke, H. & Borgert, J. (2009): Three-dimensional real-time in vivo magnetic particle imaging. Phys. Med. Biol. 54 (2009) L1–L10.

2. Non-invasive Brain-Computer Interface

Waldert, S., Preissl, H., Demandt, E., Braun, C., Birbaumer, N., Aertsen, A., & Mehring, C. (2008): Hand movement direction decoded from MEG and EEG. J Neurosci., 28/4: 1000-1008.

Quandt, F., Reichert, C., Hinrichs, H., Heinze, H.J., Knight, R.T., & Rieger, J. W. (2012): Single trial discrimination of individual finger movements on one hand: a combined MEG and EEG study. Neuroimage., 59/4: 3316-3324.



3. Non-Invasive Procedures for Brain Stimulation

Tufail, Y., Matyushov, A., Baldwin, N., Tauchmann, M. L., Georges, J., Yoshihiro, A., Tillery, S. I., & Tyler, W. J. (2010): Transcranial pulsed ultrasound stimulates intact brain circuits. Neuron, 66/5: 681-694.



4. Human-specific Disease Models (Diseases-in-a-dish)

Callaway, E. (2011): Cells snag top modelling job. Nature 469/7330: 279.

New -> D. Huh, D. C. Leslie, B. D. Matthews, J. P. Fraser, S. Jurek, G. A. Hamilton, K. S. Thorneloe, M. A. McAlexander, D. E. Ingber, A Human Disease Model of Drug Toxicity–Induced Pulmonary Edema in a Lung-on-a-Chip Microdevice. Sci. Transl. Med. 4, 159ra147 (2012).

Itzhaki, I., Maizels, L., Huber, I., Zwi-Dantsis, L., Caspi, O., Winterstern, A., Feldman, O., Gepstein, A., Arbel, G., Hammerman, H., Boulos, M., & Gepstein, L. (2011): Modelling the long QT syndrome with induced pluripotent stem cells. Nature, 471/7337: 225-229.

Moretti, A., Bellin, M., Welling, A., Jung, C.B., Lam, J.T., Bott-Flugel, L., Dorn, T., Goedel, A., Hohnke, C., Hofmann, F., Seyfarth, M., Sinnecker, D., Schomig, A., & Laugwitz, K.L. (2010): Patient-specific induced pluripotent stem-cell models for long-QT syndrome. N Engl. J Med 363/15: 1397-1409.

Takahashi, K., Tanabe, K., Ohnuki, M., Narita, M., Ichisaka, T., Tomoda, K., & Yamanaka, S. (2007): Induction of pluripotent stem cells from adult human fibroblasts by defined factors. Cell, 131/5: 861-872.

5. Microfluidic systems

Huh, D., Matthews, B. D., Mammoto, A., Montoya-Zavala, M., Hsin, H.Y., & Ingber, D. E. (2010): Reconstituting organ-level lung functions on a chip. Science, 328/5986: 1662-1668.

Huh, D., Hamilton, G. A., & Ingber, D. E. (2011): From 3D cell culture to organs-on-chips. Trends Cell Biol, 21/12: 745-754.

Neuzil, P. et al. (2012): Revisiting lab-on-a-chip technology for drug discovery. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 11: 620 - 32.

Tsai, M., Kita, A., Leach, J., Rounsevell, R., Huang, J. N., Moake, J., Ware, R. E., Fletcher, D. A., & Lam, W. A. (2012): In vitro modeling of the microvascular occlusion and thrombosis that occur in hematologic diseases using microfluidic technology. J Clin Invest, 122/1: 408-418.