Abstract
Background and aimsAutomated recording of laboratory animal’s home cage behavior is receiving increasing attention since such non-intruding surveillance will aid in the unbiased understanding of animal cage behavior potentially improving animal experimental reproducibility.Material and methodsHere we investigate activity of group held female C57BL/6J mice (mus musculus) housed in standard Individually Ventilated Cages across three test-sites: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, Rome, Italy), The Jackson Laboratory (JAX, Bar Harbor, USA) and Karolinska Insititutet (KI, Stockholm, Sweden). Additionally, comparison of female and male C57BL/6J mice was done at KI. Activity was recorded using a capacitive-based sensor placed non-intrusively on the cage rack under the home cage collecting activity data every 250 msec, 24/7. The data collection was analyzed using non-parametric analysis of variance for longitudinal data comparing sites, weekdays and sex.ResultsThe system detected an increase in activity preceding and peaking around lights-on followed by a decrease to a rest pattern. At lights off, activity increased substantially displaying a distinct temporal variation across this period. We also documented impact on mouse activity that standard animal handling procedures have, e.g. cage-changes, and show that such procedures are stressors impacting in-cage activity.These key observations replicated across the three test-sites, however, it is also clear that, apparently minor local environmental differences generate significant behavioral variances between the sites and within sites across weeks. Comparison of gender revealed differences in activity in the response to cage-change lasting for days in male but not female mice; and apparently also impacting the response to other events such as lights-on in males. Females but not males showed a larger tendency for week-to-week variance in activity possibly reflecting estrous cycling.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate that home cage monitoring is scalable and run in real time, providing complementary information for animal welfare measures, experimental design and phenotype characterization.
Highlights
The system detected an increase in activity preceding and peaking around lights-on followed by a decrease to a rest pattern
Females but not males showed a larger tendency for week-to-week variance in activity possibly reflecting estrous cycling. These data demonstrate that home cage monitoring is scalable and run in real time, providing complementary information for animal welfare measures, experimental design and phenotype characterization
The use of animals in scientific experiments has many key advantages taking into consideration as it does, the complexity of the complete living organism there are intrinsic challenges including a moral imperative to follow a “Replace, Reduce and Refine” philosophy [1,2], and to maximize data acquisition and usefulness in all experimental systems involving them
Summary
The use of animals in scientific experiments has many key advantages taking into consideration as it does, the complexity of the complete living organism there are intrinsic challenges including a moral imperative to follow a “Replace, Reduce and Refine” philosophy [1,2], and to maximize data acquisition and usefulness in all experimental systems involving them. For ethical and scientific reasons the use of animal as experimental models, their characterization plus the provision of the best possible husbandry are prerequisites in optimizing their use and improving reproducibility. Animals, including mice display a rich repertoire of behavioral responses to experimental testing despite our insights, it is surprisingly rare that these responses are recorded unless they are directly the subject of the study and reported as a read-out parameter (see below), while in contrast for human clinical trials the complete collection of all data from patients, if only for compliance is a key requisite. Automated recording of laboratory animal’s home cage behavior is receiving increasing attention since such non-intruding surveillance will aid in the unbiased understanding of animal cage behavior potentially improving animal experimental reproducibility
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