Edward Taub (born 1931, Brooklyn New York)^[1] is a behavioral neuroscientist on the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is best known for his involvement in the Silver Spring monkeys case, for making discoveries in the area of neuroplasticity, and developing constraint-induced movement therapy; a family of techniques which helps the rehabilitation of people who have developed learned non-use^[2] as a result of suffering neurological injuries from a stroke or other cause.

Taub holds a B.A. from Brooklyn College, a M.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from New York University. He was married to opera singer Mildred Allen.

Silver Spring trial

Taub's studies have involved using animal test subjects, including seventeen macaque monkeys living inside the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. These monkeys, known as the Silver Spring monkeys, became the focus of a protest spearheaded by Alex Pacheco of the animal-rights group PETA in 1981.^[3]

After Pacheco submitted his allegations to the authorities, Taub was charged with 119 counts of animal cruelty and failing to provide adequate veterinary care. At the conclusion of the first bench trial 113 cruelty charges were dismissed by the judge, largely because a Department of Agriculture veterinarian who had made unannounced visits to the laboratory had testified that he did not find the conditions depicted by Pacheco.^[3] Taub was convicted of six misdemeanor charges of failing to provide adequate veterinary care and fined $3,500. Five of these were dismissed at a second, jury trial and the final charge was set aside by an appellate court, which found that the Maryland's Prevention of Cruelty to Animals law was never intended to apply to researchers.^[3]

The National Institutes of Health initiated its own investigation and suspended the remaining funding for Taub's experiments, over $200,000, due to violations of animal care guidelines.^[4] After Taub was exonerated by the courts, sixty-seven professional societies made representation on Taub's behalf and the NIH reversed its decision not to fund him.^[5]

Work on stroke recovery

In 1987 Taub moved to the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and began to focus on the area of stroke-recovery. Taub sought to investigate the potential for "constraint-based therapy" to help in the recovery of movement in affected limbs. With an impaired arm, for instance, the therapy involves restraining the patient's good arm over a period of intensive therapy on the affected arm. Sharon Begley writes that Taub and his colleagues' work achieved major progress in the area of neuroplasticity, by targeting the conditions in which the brain can adapt and repair itself after an injury. This original work has since been translated into clinical practice protocols with the development of modified constraint induced therapies used on an outpatient basis, led by Dr. Stephen Page^[6] and subsequently by others, and by the adoption of a high duration, modified protocol of Taub's own that is now featured in Taub's clinic.

Selected papers