Abstract
Several regulatory provisions have been introduced during the last decade that might interfere with the conduct of experimental medical science. In order to study their impact on the source of information within one major field, heart research, a total of 3579 abstracts from the 1978 and 1988 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association were analysed with respect to their source of information. There was no change in overall fractions of classical patient studies (45%) or experimental animal studies (30%) for the 2 years although regulations have been introduced in both areas. There was no evidence that the volume of circulatory physiology, a subset that extensively utilizes animal experimentation, declined relative to other subsets of the composite information base. The fraction of cell culture studies clearly rose over the period at the expense of in vitro laboratory studies but not as replacement for animal experimentation. Particularly tight regulations on experiments with selected species apparently explains why dogs and cats are less frequently used relative to rats, rabbits, ferrets and pigs which represent the alternatives. Nevertheless, the absolute number of dog studies doubled over the 10-year period and this species still remains the most widely used experimental model in heart research. The study does not reveal directly what is actually performed within the research community but rather identifies the source of information for those studies that are considered to bring about pertinent new information in modern heart research.