Abstract
Small animal models are frequently used to improve our understanding of the molecular and biological signaling pathways underlying the beneficial effects of physical activity and exercise. Unfortunately, when running wheels are employed, mice and rats are often kept single-housed to determine the individual running distance of each animal. However, social isolation can be stressful for rodents, and may alter an individual’s propensity for or response to exercise. For example, increased stress from single housing may significantly affect the results when investigating systemic metabolic responses to exercise. We have combined two already available and well-established systems, a radiotelemetry system and a running wheel, to determine spontaneous cage activity (SCA) as well as voluntary exercise (VE) levels of the individual animal in group-housed rodents. Further, we developed a simple software tool which allows monitoring and analyzing the data. Specifically, the radiotelemetry-system utilizes radio-frequency identification via a small, implanted chip to determine the location of each animal. Since, in addition to the animals’ position, also the location of the running wheel in the cage is known, the conclusion of which animal is exercising can be drawn. The developed software enables a fast and reliable assignment of the VE data to the individual animal and a simple analysis of the data collected. Hence, our combined method may be used to investigate the beneficial effects of physical activity, as well as the impact of therapeutic interventions on animal behavior in group-housed rodents.
Highlights
Small animal models are frequently used to improve our understanding of the molecular and biological signaling pathways underlying the beneficial effects of physical activity and exercise
The radiotelemetry system is based on an electromagnetic field in which the movement patterns of each animal equipped with a radio frequency identification device (RFID) can be detected
While the field changes of the CON group remained constant over the study period of 7 weeks (2498.71 fc/24 h week 4; 2544.63 fc/24 h week 7; Fig. 8), spontaneous cage activity (SCA) significantly increased within the EX group during the experimental period (3458.66 fc/24 h week 4; 3964.99 fc/24 h week 7; p = 0.03 week 1 vs. week 4; p = 0.001 week 1 vs. week 7; Fig. 8) and was significantly higher than the SCA of the CON group at week 7 (p = 0.03; Fig. 8)
Summary
Small animal models are frequently used to improve our understanding of the molecular and biological signaling pathways underlying the beneficial effects of physical activity and exercise. We have combined two already available and well-established systems, a radiotelemetry system and a running wheel, to determine spontaneous cage activity (SCA) as well as voluntary exercise (VE) levels of the individual animal in group-housed rodents. Each method allows researchers to collect information about the animals’ movement patterns, but require that animals must be kept in species-inappropriate husbandry due to single-housing or 24-h lighting. To warrant easy and reliable assignment and quick data analysis, we developed a new software termed SCAVE (Spontaneous Cage Activity and Voluntary Exercise). This combination and the developed software enable the researcher to track animals’ individual movement and activity patterns without affecting its natural behavior by single-housing, recurrent labeling, or surgical procedures
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