Tallent Bret R, Law L Matthew, Rowe Rachel K, Lifshitz Jonathan
1 Department of Child Health, University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
3 Barrow Neurological Institute at Phoenix Children's Hospital, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Lab Anim. 2018 Aug;52(4):384-393. doi: 10.1177/0023677217753464. Epub 2018 Feb 6.
Aggression in mice often results in injury leading to unplanned euthanasia or the initiation of protocols to isolate animals, thereby increasing research costs and straining resources. Here, we tested if adding a partial cage divider into existing mouse cages affected aggressive-like behavior in group-housed male mice (18 mice; 3 per cage). Mice were randomly assigned to one of two groups upon arrival to the vivarium: (1) standard cage; (2) cage with a partial cage divider. Behavioral observation over 12 hours were conducted at day one, two, and seven after receipt at the facility in order to assess aggression during the course of establishing dominance hierarchies. Observers blinded to study design and hypothesis scored each video for the number and type of aggressive behaviors, which were summed for each hour and analyzed. Results indicated a statistically significant decrease in aggressive behaviors of mice in cages with dividers compared to mice in standard cages. We conclude that cage dividers, which resemble burrows and provide access to common food/water, may promote rigorous research by reducing the number of animals used in a study and refining housing, thus, improving animal welfare.
小鼠之间的攻击行为常常会导致受伤，进而导致意外安乐死或启动隔离动物的方案，从而增加研究成本并使资源紧张。在此，我们测试了在现有的小鼠笼中添加部分笼隔板是否会影响群居雄性小鼠（18只小鼠；每笼3只）的攻击样行为。小鼠到达动物饲养室后被随机分为两组：（1）标准笼；（2）带有部分笼隔板的笼子。在设施接收小鼠后的第一天、第二天和第七天进行12小时的行为观察，以评估在建立优势等级过程中的攻击行为。对研究设计和假设不知情的观察者对每个视频中的攻击行为的数量和类型进行评分，将每小时的评分相加并进行分析。结果表明，与标准笼中的小鼠相比，带有隔板的笼子中小鼠的攻击行为在统计学上显著减少。我们得出结论，类似于洞穴且能提供共用食物/水的笼隔板，可能通过减少研究中使用的动物数量和优化饲养条件来促进严谨的研究，从而改善动物福利。
