The Effects of Different Feeding Routines on Welfare in Laboratory Mice

Feige-Diller, Janina; Krakenberg, Viktoria; Bierbaum, Louisa; Seifert, Leonie; Palme, Rupert; Kaiser, Sylvia; Sachser, Norbert; Richter, S. Helene

doi:10.3389/fvets.2019.00479

Cited by 16 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…C57BL6/J mice (CLEA, Shizuoka, Japan) were kept in conventional transparent mouse cages (29 × 18 × 13 cm) of four or five per cage in an air-conditioned room maintained at 23 ± 3 °C with a 12-h diurnal period and unrestricted access to normal food (MF, Oriental Yeast Co., Ltd, Tokyo, Japan) and tap water. For GBEs-fed mice, as the average food intake of a 10 g mouse is about 3 g per day 67 , 68 , the feeding was carried out according to the approximate weekly food intake per cage we calculated. The mice's weight was recorded weekly to ensure that GBEs feeding did not affect their weight gain compared to normal food intake mice, records showed no significant difference in body weight between the normal feeding and GBEs feeding groups (Supplementary Fig.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ginkgo biloba extracts improve choroidal circulation leading to suppression of myopia in mice

Hou

Mori

Ikeda

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Myopia is becoming more common across the world, necessitating the development of preventive methods. We investigated the activity of early growth response 1 (EGR-1) protein and discovered that Ginkgo biloba extracts (GBEs) activated EGR-1 in vitro. In vivo, C57BL/6 J mice were fed either normal or 0.0667% GBEs (200 mg/kg) mixed chow (n = 6 each), and myopia was induced with − 30 diopter (D) lenses from 3 to 6 weeks of age. Refraction and axial length were measured by an infrared photorefractor and an SD-OCT system, respectively. In lens-induced myopia mice, oral GBEs significantly improved refractive errors (− 9.92 ± 1.53 D vs. − 1.67 ± 3.51 D, p < 0.001) and axial elongation (0.22 ± 0.02 mm vs. 0.19 ± 0.02 mm, p < 0.05). To confirm the mechanism of GBEs in preventing myopia progression, the 3-week-old mice were divided into normally fed with either myopic-induced or non-myopic-induced groups and GBEs fed with either myopic-induced or non-myopic-induced groups (n = 10 each). Choroidal blood perfusion was measured with optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). In both non-myopic induced groups, compared to normal chow, oral GBEs significantly improved choroidal blood perfusion (8.48 ± 15.75%Area vs. 21.74 ± 10.54%Area, p < 0.05) and expression of Egr-1 and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) in the choroid. In both myopic-induced groups, compared to normal chow, oral GBEs also improved choroidal blood perfusion (− 9.82 ± 9.47%Area vs. 2.29 ± 11.84%Area, p < 0.05) and was positively correlated with the change in choroidal thickness. These findings suggest that GBEs may inhibit the progression of myopia by improving choroidal blood perfusion.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ginkgo biloba extracts improve choroidal circulation leading to suppression of myopia in mice

Hou

Mori

Ikeda

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…As the experimenter could see continuously filled feeding racks in the cages of AL mice on the videos, AL mice were identifiable on the recordings. On the videos, a mouse was considered active , when it showed any kind of motion, excluding tiny whisker, ear or tail movements (Feige-Diller et al, 2020 ). A stereotypy was counted when a mouse showed circling, route tracing, jumping or back flipping ( Table 1 ).…”

Section: Animals Materials and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The power of a touch: Regular touchscreen training but not its termination affects hormones and behavior in mice

Quante

Siewert²,

Palme³

et al. 2023

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Touchscreen-based procedures are increasingly used in experimental animal research. They not only represent a promising approach for translational research, but have also been highlighted as a powerful tool to reduce potential experimenter effects in animal studies. However, to prepare the animals for a touchscreen-based test, an often time-consuming training phase is required that has itself been shown to cause increased adrenocortical activity and anxiety-like behavior in mice. While these findings point at a potentially negative effect of touchscreen training at first glance, results have also been discussed in light of an enriching effect of touchscreen training. The aim of the present study was therefore to shed more light on recently reported touchscreen training effects, with a particular focus on the termination of the training routine. Specifically, we investigated whether the termination of regular touchscreen training could constitute a loss of enrichment for mice. Thus, we assessed fecal corticosterone metabolites (FCMs), exploratory-, anxiety-like and home cage behavior in touchscreen-trained mice in comparison to food restricted and ad libitum fed mice, as a restricted diet is an integral part of the training process. Furthermore, we compared these parameters between mice that were continuously trained and mice whose training was terminated 2 weeks earlier. Our results confirm previous findings showing that a mild food restriction increases the animals' exploratory behavior and shifts their activity rhythm. Moreover, touchscreen training was found to increase FCM levels and anxiety-like behavior of the mice. However, no effect of the termination of touchscreen training could be detected, a finding which contradicts the enrichment loss hypothesis. Therefore, we discuss two alternative explanations for the findings. Yet, the current state of knowledge is not sufficient to draw final conclusions at this stage. In compliance with the refinement endeavors for laboratory animals, further research should assess the severity of touchscreen procedures to ensure a responsible and well-founded use of animals for experimental purposes.

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“…After the experimental phase started, a restrictive feeding regime was provided, i.e., animals received food once per day to maintain 90%–95% of their ad libitum feeding weights. This food restriction scheme had the purpose to increase the motivation to work for food rewards while avoiding a negative impact on welfare (Feige-Diller et al, 2020 ). Body weights were monitored on a daily basis using a digital scale (resolution: 0.1 g; KERN CM 150-1N pocket balance, KERN and Sohn GmbH, Balingen, Germany).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcriptional profiles in the mouse amygdala after a cognitive judgment bias test largely depend on the genotype

Herrera-Rivero

Böhn

Witten

et al. 2022

Front. Mol. Neurosci.

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Background: The amygdala is crucial for emotional cognitive processing. Affective or emotional states can bias cognitive processes, including attention, memory, and decision-making. This can result in optimistic or pessimistic behaviors that are partially driven by the activation of the amygdala. The resulting emotional cognitive bias is a common feature of anxiety and mood disorders, both of which are interactively influenced by genetic and environmental factors. It is also known that emotional cognitive biases can be influenced by environmental factors. However, little is known about the effects of genetics and/or gene-environment interactions on emotional cognitive biases. We investigated the effects of the genetic background and environmental enrichment on the transcriptional profiles of the mouse amygdala following a well-established cognitive bias test.Methods: Twenty-four female C57BL/6J and B6D2F1N mice were housed either in standard (control) conditions or in an enriched environment. After appropriate training, the cognitive bias test was performed on 19 mice that satisfactorily completed the training scheme to assess their responses to ambiguous cues. This allowed us to calculate an “optimism score” for each mouse. Subsequently, we dissected the anterior and posterior portions of the amygdala to perform RNA-sequencing for differential expression and other statistical analyses.Results: In general, we found only minor changes in the amygdala’s transcriptome associated with the levels of optimism in our mice. In contrast, we observed wide molecular effects of the genetic background in both housing environments. The C57BL/6J animals showed more transcriptional changes in response to enriched environments than the B6D2F1N mice. We also generally found more dysregulated genes in the posterior than in the anterior portion of the amygdala. Gene set overrepresentation analyses consistently implicated cellular metabolic responses and immune processes in the differences observed between mouse strains, while processes favoring neurogenesis and neurotransmission were implicated in the responses to environmental enrichment. In a correlation analysis, lipid metabolism in the anterior amygdala was suggested to influence the levels of optimism.Conclusions: Our observations underscore the importance of selecting appropriate animal models when performing molecular studies of affective conditions or emotional states, and suggest an important role of immune and stress responses in the genetic component of emotion regulation.

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The Effects of Different Feeding Routines on Welfare in Laboratory Mice

Cited by 16 publications

References 66 publications

Ginkgo biloba extracts improve choroidal circulation leading to suppression of myopia in mice

Ginkgo biloba extracts improve choroidal circulation leading to suppression of myopia in mice

The power of a touch: Regular touchscreen training but not its termination affects hormones and behavior in mice

Transcriptional profiles in the mouse amygdala after a cognitive judgment bias test largely depend on the genotype

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