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Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states

Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one such indicator. IBA is elevated in barren, conventional housing compared wi...

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Autores principales: MacLellan, Aileen, Nazal, Basma, Young, Lauren, Mason, Georgia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9627452/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36340516
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221083
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author MacLellan, Aileen
Nazal, Basma
Young, Lauren
Mason, Georgia
author_facet MacLellan, Aileen
Nazal, Basma
Young, Lauren
Mason, Georgia
author_sort MacLellan, Aileen
collection PubMed
description Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one such indicator. IBA is elevated in barren, conventional housing compared with well-resourced, enriched housing, and predicts immobility in Forced Swim Tests, a common measure of ‘helplessness’ in depression research. In Experiment 1, using females from three strains (C57BL/6, Balb/c and DBA/2), we first replicated past findings, confirming higher levels of IBA in conventional cages and a positive relationship between IBA and helplessness. We then extended this research to three other signs of depression: changes in weight and sleep, and reduced hippocampal volume. Here, IBA positively covaried with body mass index, with sleep in DBA/2s and conventionally housed BALB/cs, and negatively covaried with hippocampal volume in conventionally housed C57BL/6s. In Experiment 2, we sought to refine the phenotype of IBA to improve its accuracy as a welfare indicator. Here, scoring IBA performed in hunched postures appeared to improve its accuracy as an indicator in Balb/c mice. Additional research is now needed to further refine the phenotype of IBA and to confirm whether it reflects states consistent with depression, or instead other underlying poor welfare conditions.
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spelling pubmed-96274522022-11-04 Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states MacLellan, Aileen Nazal, Basma Young, Lauren Mason, Georgia R Soc Open Sci Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one such indicator. IBA is elevated in barren, conventional housing compared with well-resourced, enriched housing, and predicts immobility in Forced Swim Tests, a common measure of ‘helplessness’ in depression research. In Experiment 1, using females from three strains (C57BL/6, Balb/c and DBA/2), we first replicated past findings, confirming higher levels of IBA in conventional cages and a positive relationship between IBA and helplessness. We then extended this research to three other signs of depression: changes in weight and sleep, and reduced hippocampal volume. Here, IBA positively covaried with body mass index, with sleep in DBA/2s and conventionally housed BALB/cs, and negatively covaried with hippocampal volume in conventionally housed C57BL/6s. In Experiment 2, we sought to refine the phenotype of IBA to improve its accuracy as a welfare indicator. Here, scoring IBA performed in hunched postures appeared to improve its accuracy as an indicator in Balb/c mice. Additional research is now needed to further refine the phenotype of IBA and to confirm whether it reflects states consistent with depression, or instead other underlying poor welfare conditions. The Royal Society 2022-11-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9627452/ /pubmed/36340516 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221083 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
MacLellan, Aileen
Nazal, Basma
Young, Lauren
Mason, Georgia
Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
title Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
title_full Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
title_fullStr Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
title_full_unstemmed Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
title_short Waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
title_sort waking inactivity as a welfare indicator in laboratory mice: investigating postures, facial expressions and depression-like states
topic Organismal and Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9627452/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36340516
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221083
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