The animal preference for complexity is most clearly demonstrated when the environmental change takes the form of an increase in complexity. Therefore, one of the potential difficulties in interpretation is that the preference for perceptual...
Gradual filling of a chamber with carbon dioxide is currently listed by the Canadian Council on Animal Care guidelines as a conditionally acceptable method of euthanasia for rats. Behavioural evidence suggests, however, that exposure to...
Animal models of epilepsy and seizures, mostly involving mice and rats, are used to understand the pathophysiology of the different forms of epilepsy and their comorbidities, to identify biomarkers, and to discover new antiepileptic drugs...
Environmental enrichment of laboratory animals influences brain plasticity, stimulates neurogenesis, increases neurotrophic factor expression, and protects against the effects of brain insult. However, these positive effects are not constantly observed, probably because standardized procedures of...
Diet board (DB) feeding aims to reduce the health hazards associated with ad libitum (AL) feeding. Rats have to gnaw wood to detach food from the DB, reducing their food consumption. We studied the welfare...
Rats find initial interactions with humans frightening, which can lead to negative affect, and poor welfare. A handling technique called “tickling”, which mimics rat rough-and-tumble play, can be used to reduce these negative effects. When...
Judgement bias tests of animal affect and hence welfare assume that the animal’s responses to ambiguous stimuli, which may herald positive or negative outcomes, are under instrumental control and reflect ‘optimism’ or ‘pessimism’ about what...
Previous research has shown that rats reared in simple/impoverished environments demonstrate greater repetitive responding for sensory reinforcers (e.g., light onset). Moreover, the brains of these rats are abnormally developed, compared to brains of rats reared...
Background: Addiction is a chronic disease characterized by persistent vulnerability to relapse during abstinence. In animal models of addiction, accumulating evidence suggests that exposure to environmental enrichment (EE) during periods of abstinence can have curative...
The aim of the present review is to discuss how housing conditions affect behavioral performance in laboratory rodents from an ethological view. Commonly used laboratory rodents such as rats and mice, are originally captured animals...