SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Lab Toys: How Does Cage Enrichment Affect Rodents?
from the Scientist
In a room full of clinical veterinarians and animal-care technicians, everybody is about to play a game. ... Each of the 15 or 20 teams will receive a species designation (monkey, mouse, rabbit, dog, pig, rat), a piece of posterboard, a magic marker, and an index card that describes a study using that species. ... Teams will then have about 30 minutes to think up and draw some device or toy that improves the cage environment for the animals in a manner appropriate for each species--an activity that generally falls under the heading of "enrichment." ...
The general reasoning behind enrichment is that it will improve the welfare of animals in captivity. There's been little systematic study, though, of how specific enrichment practices affect lab animals--arguably less for rodents (the vast majority of animals used in research) than for other species, such as primates and dogs, for which some basic enrichment practices have generally been required by law in most countries.
The European Union is debating changes to a directive on laboratory animal care that would mandate specific rodent enrichments; so far there are no such stipulations in the United States. "Mice and rats were left in the dark," says Michele Cunneen, founder and president of Animal Research Consulting, a Massachusetts-based company that sets up animal research facilities primarily for start-up biotech companies.
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