Leidinger Charlotte Sophie, Kaiser Nadine, Baumgart Nadine, Baumgart Jan
Translational Animal Research Center, University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz.
Translational Animal Research Center, University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz;
J Vis Exp. 2018 Oct 25(140):58511. doi: 10.3791/58511.
Cage cleaning is a routinely performed husbandry procedure and is known to induce stress in laboratory rats. As stress can have a negative impact on well-being and can affect the comparability and reproducibility of research results, the amount of stress experienced by laboratory animals should be minimized and avoided when possible. Further, the direct contact between the rat and animal caretaker during the cage change bears hygiene risks and therefore possibly negatively impacts the well-being of the rats and the quality of the research. Our protocol aims to improve the routinely performed cage changing procedure. For this reason, we present a feasible protocol that enables rats to learn via clicker training and observation to voluntarily change to a clean cage. This training helps to reduce stress caused by the physical disturbance and handling associated with the cage changes and concurrently enables a reduction in direct contact between animal and animal caretaker after the training phase is completed. The implementation of clicker training to rats is fast and easy. Rats are generally interested in the training and efficiently learn the desired behavior, which entails changing cages through a pipe. Even without training, the rats learn to perform the desired behavior by observation, as 80% of the observational learning group successfully changed cages when tested. The training further helps to establish a relationship of trust between trainer and animal. As hygiene and well-being are both very important in animal experiments, this protocol might also help to improve high-quality research.
笼具清洁是一项常规执行的饲养程序，已知会在实验大鼠中诱发应激。由于应激会对动物健康产生负面影响，并可能影响研究结果的可比性和可重复性，因此应尽可能减少并避免实验动物所经历的应激量。此外，在更换笼具期间大鼠与动物饲养员之间的直接接触存在卫生风险，因此可能会对大鼠的健康和研究质量产生负面影响。我们的方案旨在改进常规执行的笼具更换程序。出于这个原因，我们提出了一个可行的方案，使大鼠能够通过点击训练和观察学习，自愿更换到干净的笼具中。这种训练有助于减少因笼具更换带来的身体干扰和处理所引起的应激，并且在训练阶段完成后，能够同时减少动物与动物饲养员之间的直接接触。对大鼠实施点击训练快速且容易。大鼠通常对训练感兴趣，并能高效地学会所需行为，即通过管道更换笼具。即使没有训练，大鼠也能通过观察学会执行所需行为，因为在测试时，80% 的观察学习组成功更换了笼具。该训练还有助于在训练者和动物之间建立信任关系。由于卫生和动物健康在动物实验中都非常重要，该方案可能也有助于改进高质量的研究。
