Living together in large social communities within an enriched environment stimulates self-motivated activity in rats. We developed a modular housing system in which a single unit can accommodate as many as 48 rats and contains...
Laboratories and vivariums typically are maintained at ambient temperatures of 20 to 24 °C, leading to cold stress in mice. When mice are inactive and sleeping during the light phase, their zone of thermoneutrality associated...
At research institutions, isoflurane delivered by precision vaporizer to a face mask is the standard for rodent surgery and for procedures with durations that exceed a few minutes. Pure oxygen is often used as the...
Selecting an appropriate, effective euthanasia agent is controversial. Several recent publications provide clarity on the use of CO2 in laboratory rats and mice. This review examines previous studies on CO2 euthanasia and presents the current...
Anesthetic agents depress thermoregulatory mechanisms, causing hypothermia within minutes of induction of general anesthesia. The consequences of hypothermia include delayed recovery and increased experimental variability. Even when normothermia is maintained during anesthesia, hypothermia may occur...
A common method for urine collection from rats requires the use of a metabolic cage, thus exposing animals to extended periods of isolation in an unfamiliar cage with a wire-mesh floor. A new method involving...
Current recommendations for the use of CO 2 as a euthanasia agent for rats require the use of gradual fill protocols (such as 10% to 30% volume displacement per minute) in order to render the...
Millions of laboratory animals are killed each year worldwide. There is an ethical, and in many countries also a legal, imperative to ensure those deaths cause minimal suffering. However, there is a lack of consensus...
There is considerable interest in refining laboratory rodent environments to promote animal well-being, as well as research reproducibility. Few studies have evaluated the long term impact of enhancing rodent environments with resources and additional cagemates...
The poor record of basic-to-clinical translation in recent decades has led to speculation that preclinical research is “irreproducible”, and this irreproducibility in turn has largely been attributed to deficiencies in reporting and statistical practices. There...