Abstract
Most behavioral research is conducted in lab-housed animals due to the significantadvantages of a controlled environment. In an effort to enhance the welfare and toobtain more realistic measures of behavior, larger cages with an additional raisedplatform have been developed for rats, thus increasing spatial complexity. However,the effects of this change in environment on behavioral patterns, individualdevelopment, and maternal performance remain unexplored. Moreover, whilethe benefits of the new, large cage type to animal welfare seem obvious, there hasbeen considerable debate about the impact of this change in environment on performance in experimental paradigms and comparability with data collected fromanimals kept in the old style cages. To date, no study has attempted to investigateand quantify possible changes in development and behavior. Using Lister hoodedrats, we measure differences in key behavioral and developmental traits betweenindividuals kept in the new style cages and those housed in old style cage. Thisproject has the further aim to test hypotheses about predicted effects of cage typeon specific parts of the brain and associated effects on task performance. Generalenvironmental enrichment and increased spatial complexity has been shown toimpact hippocampus-dependent memory. For example, appetitive learning in theT-maze is dependent on the hippocampus and we predict, therefore, a beneficialeffect of being raised in the larger (enriched) cages compared with the smaller(impoverished) cages. By contrast, the novel object recognition task is hippocampus-independent and we predict no effect of cage type on performance for this task. Our first results indicate effects of cage type on maternal provisioning and behavior as well as offspring short-term growth. We will further present the firstpreliminary data from task performance experiments between the 2 groups of ratsand discuss the implications of our findings for animal welfare and development
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | host publication |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2010 |
| Event | 61st AALAS Annual Meeting - Atlanta, USA Duration: 10 Oct 2010 → 14 Oct 2010 |
Conference
| Conference | 61st AALAS Annual Meeting |
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| City | Atlanta, USA |
| Period | 10/10/10 → 14/10/10 |