Rodent

Group housing female guinea pigs

Group housing [female] guinea pigs can save space and money, while improving housing standards. The authors describe enclosure design, enrichments, and husbandry techniques that facilitate group housing female guinea pigs. No data are included in this article.

Year Published: 2000Topics: Environmental Enrichment, Housing, Husbandry & Management, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Guinea Pig, Rodent

Citation: Raje, S. S., Stewart, K. L. 2000. Group housing female guinea pigs. Lab Animal 29(8), 31-32.

Development of spontaneous stereotyped behavior in deer mice: effects of early and late exposure to a more complex environment

We hypothesized that spontaneous stereotypies exhibited by deer mice housed under standard laboratory conditions were the result of environmental restriction and that a sensitive period exists for the development/prevention of stereotypies. Exposure to a more complex environment early in the...

Year Published: 2000Animal Type: Other Rodent, Rodent

Citation: Powell, S. B., Newman, H. A., McDonald, T. A. et al. 2000. Development of spontaneous stereotyped behavior in deer mice: effects of early and late exposure to a more complex environment. Developmental Psychobiology 37, 100-108.

50-kHz chirping (laughter?) in response to conditioned and unconditioned tickle-induced reward in rats: effects of social housing and genetic variables

In these studies the incidence of conditioned and unconditioned 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in young rats was measured in response to rewarding manual tickling by an experimenter. We found that isolate-housed animals vocalize much more then socially housed ones, and...

Year Published: 2000Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Panksepp, J., Burgdorf, J. 2000. 50-kHz chirping (laughter?) in response to conditioned and unconditioned tickle-induced reward in rats: effects of social housing and genetic variables. Behavioural Brain Research 115, 25-38.

A conspecific attenuates prolactin responses to open-field exposure in rats

Acute exposure to a novel environment, such as an open field, generally results in a prolactin surge, while several days of exposure to the open field is often characterized by a decline in prolactin. As exposure to the open field...

Year Published: 2000Animal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Wilson, J. H. 2000. A conspecific attenuates prolactin responses to open-field exposure in rats. Hormones and Behavior 38(1), 39-43.

Modulation of aggression in male mice: Influence of cage cleaning regime and scent marks

Group housing of male laboratory mice often leads to welfare problems due to aggressive behaviour. ... Aggression peaks after disturbances such as cage cleaning .. Our results indicated that neither kinship nor distribution of urine marks affected aggression. Olfactory cues...

Year Published: 2000Animal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Van Loo, P. L. P., Kruitwagen, C. L. J. J., Van Zutphen, L. F. M. 2000. Modulation of aggression in male mice: Influence of cage cleaning regime and scent marks. Animal Welfare 9, 281-295.

Delaying the onset of Huntington’s in mice

Huntington's disease is an inherited (autosomal dominant) disorder in which there is progressive neurodegeneration, affecting the corpus striatum and cerebral cortex of the brain, and for which there is no known cure. Transgenic mice have been created that develop a...

Year Published: 2000Animal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Van Dellen, A., Blakemore, C., Deacon, R. et al. 2000. Delaying the onset of Huntington?s in mice. Nature 404, 721-722.

Brain oxytocin inhibits the (re)activity of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis in male rats: involvement of hypothalamic and limbic brain regions

Increase in oxytocin relases from the hypothalamus inhibits HPA axis activation.

Year Published: 2000Animal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Neumann, I. D., Kromer, S. A., Toschi, N. et al. 2000 . Brain oxytocin inhibits the (re)activity of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis in male rats: involvement of hypothalamic and limbic brain regions. Regulatory Peptides 96, 31-38.

Rat housing into the Millennium

The floor pen offers many advantages compared to the standard holding cage, the most evident being the natural or free behavior which the animals are allowed to exhibit. Observations included a marked increase in activity, inquisitiveness of the surroundings and...

Year Published: 2000Animal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Ballard, T. 2000. Rat housing into the Millennium. Animal Technology 51, 119-123.

The use of cage enrichment to reduce male mouse aggression

Aggression was significantly reduced by the addition of novel enrichment [cardboard box, softwood block, cardboard tube]. This reduction was expected as the provision of environmental enrichment for naive animals would decrease the familiarity of the cage and, therefore, lead to...

Year Published: 2000Topics: Environmental EnrichmentAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Ambrose, N., Morton, D. B. 2000. The use of cage enrichment to reduce male mouse aggression. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 3, 117-125.

Open-field behavior of house mice selectively bred for high voluntary wheel-running

Open-field behavioral assays are commonly used to test both locomotor activity and emotionality in rodents. We performed open-field tests on house mice (Mus domesticus) from four replicate lines genetically selected for high voluntary wheel-running for 22 generations and from four...

Year Published: 2001Animal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Bronikowski, A. M., Carter, P. A., Swallow, J. G. et al. 2001. Open-field behavior of house mice selectively bred for high voluntary wheel-running. Behavior Genetics 31, 309-316.