Mice acquire flavor preferences during shipping

Tordoff, Michael G.; Alarcón, Laura K.; Byerly, Erica A.; Doman, Samantha A.

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2005.08.031

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Phytoestrogens in the diet (54), cage enrichment (4), cage position in the colony room (55), size of the drinking spout orifice (56), shipping before testing (57), and even the specific experimenter administering the test (4, 58) have been found to affect laboratory mouse physiology and behavior. Nevertheless, just as a single gene usually accounts for little variance on its own, it is highly unlikely that a multidimensional laboratory difference in behavioral data can be traced to a single environmental variant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stability of inbred mouse strain differences in behavior and brain size between laboratories and across decades

Wahłsten

Bachmanov

Finn

et al. 2006

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

264

220

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If we conduct the same experiment in two laboratories or repeat a classical study many years later, will we obtain the same results? Recent research with mice in neural and behavioral genetics yielded different results in different laboratories for certain phenotypes, and these findings suggested to some researchers that behavior may be too unstable for fine-scale genetic analysis. Here we expand the range of data on this question to additional laboratories and phenotypes, and, for the first time in this field, we formally compare recent data with experiments conducted 30 -50 years ago. For ethanol preference and locomotor activity, strain differences have been highly stable over a period of 40 -50 years, and most strain correlations are in the range of r ‫؍‬ 0.85-0.98, as high as or higher than for brain weight. For anxiety-related behavior on the elevated plus maze, on the other hand, strain means often differ dramatically across laboratories or even when the same laboratory is moved to another site within a university. When a wide range of phenotypes is considered, no inbred strain appears to be exceptionally stable or labile across laboratories in any general sense, and there is no tendency to observe higher correlations among studies done more recently. Phenotypic drift over decades for most of the behaviors examined appears to be minimal.agonistic behavior ͉ anxiety ͉ ethanol preference ͉ gene-environment interaction ͉ locomotor activity

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stability of inbred mouse strain differences in behavior and brain size between laboratories and across decades

Wahłsten

Bachmanov

Finn

et al. 2006

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

264

220

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Here we show that changes in cage type result in substantial changes in intermale aggression and, for the first time, differences in the neuroanatomy of mice. Previous studies have shown that odor enrichment in the housing environment and flavors included in food during shipping of mice affect olfactory discrimination [4] and flavor preferences [32] , respectively. In comparison, our study brings attention to the fact that differences in the olfactory environment of different cage styles likely cause the differences in size of olfactory glomeruli and affect intermale aggression.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Mouse Neuroethology in the Laboratory Environment

et al. 2010

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In this report we demonstrate that differences in cage type brought unexpected effects on aggressive behavior and neuroanatomical features of the mouse olfactory bulb. A careful characterization of two cage types, including a comparison of the auditory and temperature environments, coupled with a demonstration that naris occlusion abolishes the neuroanatomical changes, lead us to conclude that a likely important factor mediating the phenotypic changes we find is the olfactory environment of the two cages. We infer that seemingly innocuous changes in cage environment can affect sensory input relevant to mice and elicit profound effects on neural output. Study of the neural mechanisms underlying animal behavior in the laboratory environment should be broadened to include neuroethological approaches to examine how the laboratory environment (beyond animal well-being and enrichment) influences neural systems and behavior.

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“…Instead, the greatest source of variation appears to be due to factors differentially affecting individual age groups. The most likely possibilities include differences among the groups in prenatal environment, litter composition, or the shipping experience during transportation from the breeder to our laboratory (see Tordoff et al 2005). Discovering and then controlling for these sources of variation will require additional experimentation.…”

Section: Implications For Taste Phenotyping Micementioning

confidence: 99%

Taste Solution Preferences of C57BL/6J and 129X1/SvJ Mice: Influence of Age, Sex, and Diet

Tordoff

2007

Chemical Senses

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To examine whether age influences taste solution preferences, we measured taste preferences of C57BL/6J and 129X1/SvJ mice given a series of 48-h 2-bottle tests with a choice between water and one of the following taste solutions: 2 mM saccharin, 5 mM citric acid, 30 microM quinine hydrochloride, 75 mM sodium chloride (NaCl), 10 mM inosine monophosphate (IMP), 50 mM calcium chloride (CaCl(2)), and 10% ethanol. We tested separate groups of male mice fed Teklad 8604 chow at ages 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, and 50 weeks and retested some of these mice at 54, 75, and 100 weeks and again at 125 weeks. Female mice fed chow were tested at ages 4, 12, 25, and 50 weeks and retested at 54, 75, 100, and 125 weeks. Male mice fed AIN-93G semisynthetic diet were tested at ages 4, 12, 25, and 50 weeks and retested at 54, 75, and 100 weeks. Concentration-response functions for each taste solution were collected from male and female mice fed chow aged 8 or 125 weeks. In general, the results showed that age had little effect on taste preferences. Exceptions included 1) a small increase in quinine hydrochloride preference between 54 and 125 weeks in mice of both strains and sexes, 2) a marked increase in NaCl preference between 4 and 12 weeks in female B6 mice, 3) a gradual decrease in IMP preference between 4 and 125 weeks in male and female 129 mice, 4) a marked decrease in CaCl(2) preference between 54 and 125 weeks in male and female 129 mice, and 5) a marked reduction in ethanol preference between 4 and 12 weeks in male B6 mice fed AIN-93G diet but not chow. These results show that over a wide range and with the exceptions noted, age contributes little to the variation in taste preferences observed in C57BL/6J and 129X1/SvJ mice.

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Mice acquire flavor preferences during shipping

Cited by 7 publications

References 17 publications

Stability of inbred mouse strain differences in behavior and brain size between laboratories and across decades

Stability of inbred mouse strain differences in behavior and brain size between laboratories and across decades

Toward a Mouse Neuroethology in the Laboratory Environment

Taste Solution Preferences of C57BL/6J and 129X1/SvJ Mice: Influence of Age, Sex, and Diet

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