Adrian R. Morrison (1935 – 4 August 2021) was an American

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

and

vivisection Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experimen ...

activist known for researching the neurobiological mechanisms of sleep."In Memoriam: Dr. Adrian R. Morrison"
sleepresearchsociety.org. Retrieved 19 January 2024. He was President of the

Sleep Research Society The Sleep Research Society (SRS) is an organization that promotes the science of sleep and related disorders. Additionally, the SRS is dedicated to the training and education of future sleep researchers. Organization The organization traces its ...

and was the 1991 AAAS

Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...

recipient. Morrison was a firm supporter of

animal experimentation Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...

for biomedical research and an opponent of

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

Biography

Morrison was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. Morrison graduated from

Franklin & Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Frankl ...

in 1957 and obtained a veterinary degree from Cornell University in 1960."Adrian Morrison, Penn Vet"
almanac.upenn.edu. Retrieved 19 January 2024. He obtained a Masters from Cornell University in 1962 and PhD in anatomy from University of Pennsylvania in 1964. He completed postdoctoral training in sleep research at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

, Italy. In 1966, he joined Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine as an associate professor of anatomy in the department of veterinary biology and was promoted to professor in 1974. From 2001 to 2003, he was the president at the World Federation of Sleep Research Societies. In 1991 he held the role of visiting professorship at London's Royal Society of Medicine. Morrison was a collaborator at the: Unit for Experimental Psychiatry, the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, and in the Graduate Group in Anatomy, and the Graduate Group in Comparative Medical Sciences. Morrison was a consultant and member of the Institute of Neurological Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, a member of the executive board at the Human Clinical Sleep Research Center, was on the executive committee and advisory board, Center for Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology, and the executive committee of the Penn Sleep Academic Award (NIH Program). He also chaired the advisory board of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology. In addition to these roles Morrison was: the chairman of the Sleep Home Pages

Board of Governors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

, sat on the Environmental Economists Advisory Council to The

National Center for Public Policy Research The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a self-described conservative think tank in the United States. Its founding CEO was Amy Ridenour, who was chairwoman. David A. Ridenour, her husband, is president, having served ...

and was on the External Scientific Advisory Board for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research PRET Center on Countermeasures for Jet Lag and Sleep Deprivation. He was married to Olive R. Morrison. They had five children.

Animal experimentation

Morrison was a supporter of animal experimentation for biomedical research. He publicly defended a fellow neuroscientist who was investigated for cruelty to animals in his research. He supported the animal research of Dr. John Orem. This provoked criticism from animal rights activists and a raid on his laboratory by the

Animal Liberation Front The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an international, leaderless, decentralized political and social resistance movement that engages in and promotes non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty. It originated in th ...

. In 1991, he received the AAAS award “for his dedicated promotion of the responsible use of animals in research and his courageous stand in the face of great personal risk against attempts to curtail animal research essential to public health.” Morrison contributed a chapter to the book ''Why Animal Experimentation Matters'', published in 2001. He argued that animal rights activists distort the research of scholars and use misleading evidence to support an animal rights agenda. In 2009, he authored ''An Odyssey with Animals: A Veterinarian's Reflections on the Animal Rights & Welfare Debate'', which defended biomedical research on laboratory animals and criticized the arguments of animal rights activists. Morrison described the animal rights movement as "the promotion of beliefs among the untutored by dishonest presentations of the ways animals are used by humans".Guither, Harold D. (1998). ''Animal Rights History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement''. Southern Illinois University Press. p. 111.

Selected publications

Books Morrison co-edited: ''Changing Concepts of the Nervous System'' (

Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier. Academic Press publishes refere ...

), ''Brain Mechanisms of Sleep'' (

Raven Press Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is an American imprint of the American Dutch publishing conglomerate Wolters Kluwer. It was established by the acquisition of Williams & Wilkins and its merger with J.B. Lippincott Company in 1998. Under the LW ...

), ''Progress in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology'' (Academic Press), ''Progress in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology'' (Academic Press, Vol. 16 and Vol. 17), ''An analysis of the animal rights movement: its thinking, methods and successes''. Progress in Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology (Academic Press, Vol. 18). In 2010, he authored ''An Odyssey with Animals: A Veterinarian's Reflections on the Animal Rights & Welfare Debate''. Papers
''Animal Research Is Vital to Medicine''
(1997)
''Perverting medical history in the service of "animal rights"''
(2002)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morrison, Adrian 1935 births 2021 deaths American neuroscientists Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine alumni Critics of animal rights Franklin & Marshall College alumni Scientists from Philadelphia Sleep researchers University of Pennsylvania alumni Vivisection activists