Patients with cirrhosis present multiple physiological and immunological alterations that play a very important role in the development of clinically relevant secondary complications to the disease. Experimentation in animal models is essential to understand the...
The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) occurs in colonies with a distinct dominance hierarchy, including one dominant, breeding female (the queen), 1–3 breeding males, and non-reproductive subordinates of both sexes that are reproductively suppressed while in...
Reliable methods for identifying rodents play an important role in ensuring the success of preclinical studies. However, animal identification remains a trivial laboratory routine that is not often discussed, despite the fact that more than...
Pairing a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS; e.g., a tone) to an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US; e.g., a foot-shock) leads to associative learning such that the tone alone will elicit a conditioned response (e.g., freezing)...
Perseverance, also commonly referred to as grit or industriousness, is the continued effort exerted to complete goal-directed tasks. Many factors, such as stress, can contribute to perseverative behavior, but the role of sociality on perseverance...
Traditional health monitoring methods consisted of Soiled Bedding Sentinels (SBS (i.e. animals exposed to dirty bedding from colony animals)), which require the euthanasia of SBS. Numerous studies have demonstrated that SBS may not accurately represent...
Refinement of experimental procedures in animal research has the objective of preventing and minimizing pain/distress in animals, including the euthanasia period. This study aimed to evaluate pain associated with six methods of euthanasia in Wistar...
Refinement is one of the principles aiming to promote welfare in research animals. The techniques used during an experimental protocol, including euthanasia selection, must prevent and minimize suffering. Although the current euthanasia methods applied to...
Healthy brain development depends on early social practices and experiences. The risk gene CACNA1C is implicated in numerous neuropsychiatric disorders, in which key characteristics include deficits in social functioning and communication. Recently, we reported sex-dependent...
The forced swim test (FST) is a traditional assay, which has been used for more than 40 years to assess antidepressant effects of novel drug candidates. In recent years, a debate about the test has...