Well this doesn't look like "torture" to me for a start. Admittedly I don't have much knowledge of what goes on in a rat's mind but this looks uncomfortable at worst. He says in the final line: "The experiment was approved by the Feinstein Institutes’ Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee."

Clearly I don't think that simply because worse torture exists that somehow placates a rat's mind, but as a human I choose to point my outrage where it is most effective.

Also, aren't these lab rats? Where would they be had he not picked them for this experiment?

Can you elaborate on what about this is torturous? It sounds like the experimenter treats the rats well, got them acclimated to his presence/the harness/the treadmill over time, and only ran the tests with them for less than two weeks.