Benefiel Ann C, Dong Willie K, Greenough William T
Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Campaign, IL, USA.
ILAR J. 2005;46(2):95-105. doi: 10.1093/ilar.46.2.95.
Environmental enrichment for laboratory animals has come to be viewed as a potential method for improving animal well-being in addition to its original sense as a paradigm for learning how experience molds the brain. It is suggested that the term housing supplementation better describes the wide range of alterations to laboratory animal housing that has been proposed or investigated. Changes in the environments of animals have important effects on brain structure, physiology, and behavior--including recovery from illness and injury--and on which genes are expressed in various organs. Studies are reviewed that show how the brain and other organs respond to environmental change. These data warrant caution that minor cage supplementation intended for improvement of animal well-being may alter important aspects of an animal's physiology and development in a manner not easily predicted from available research. Thus, various forms of housing supplementation, although utilized or even preferred by the animals, may not enhance laboratory animal well-being and may be detrimental to the research for which the laboratory animals are used.
除了作为一种学习经验如何塑造大脑的范例这一最初意义外，实验动物的环境丰富化如今已被视为改善动物福祉的一种潜在方法。有人建议，“饲养补充”一词能更好地描述已被提出或研究的对实验动物饲养环境的广泛改变。动物环境的变化对大脑结构、生理学和行为（包括疾病和损伤后的恢复）以及各种器官中哪些基因表达都有重要影响。本文回顾了一些研究，展示了大脑和其他器官如何对环境变化做出反应。这些数据警示人们，旨在改善动物福祉的轻微笼舍补充可能会以现有研究难以预测的方式改变动物生理学和发育的重要方面。因此，各种形式的饲养补充，尽管被动物所利用甚至偏好，但可能不会提高实验动物的福祉，并且可能对使用实验动物进行的研究有害。
