Do male mice prefer to live on their own?

雄性老鼠喜欢独居吗？

• 批准号: NC/T001380/1
• 负责人: Emma Robinson
• 金额: $ 51.69万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NC%2FT001380%2F1
• 关键词: Do; male; mice; prefer; live; Do; male; mice; prefer; live

Mice are the most commonly used laboratory animal species. They provide researchers with a model organism of mammalian physiology which recapitulates many of the normal and pathological processes seen in human biology. One of the most important scientific advances in the last few decades has been the ability to manipulate the genetics of the mouse to create novel mutations which can be used to answer important scientific questions. Genetically altered mice now represent a large proportion of the animals being used in research and the management of mouse colonies is an area where huge benefits in animal welfare could be made but equally, if not optimal, can create significant welfare costs and cumulative suffering. The housing environment of these animals is an area where the greatest impact over the duration of an animal's lifetime can be made. Whilst animals often do not show overt signs of distress associated with their housing environment, in male mice this is not the case. Fighting among males as they become sexually mature can lead to serious injury and even death. Even where animals do not show evidence of physical injury, there is the potential for chronic social stress within these group housed animals. Amongst the scientific community there is widespread concern about fighting in male mice and how best to manage this. Current beliefs are that mice are highly social and therefore require social housing in groups to achieve the highest standards of welfare. However, the evidence for this is quite varied and surprisingly limited. In fact, some studies in wild mice suggest that males may prefer not to live with other males. We propose that whilst mice may benefit from social interaction, this may not be offset by the social pressures which arise from group housing in a restricted (laboratory cage) environment. It is also possible that the social stress of group housing has higher welfare costs than the consequences of loss of physical contact with other mice. A major limitation associated with previous research in this area has been a lack of objective methods to measure the impact of long term, low level social stress and cumulative suffering. In fact, it is only very recently that methods have been developed which can reliably measure behaviours which directly reflect the animals affective state and hence can provide a measure of welfare outcomes. Our research group is one of those which has pioneered methods to measure affective state in rodents. We are one of the leading groups working in the field of rodent models for depression research and we now want to apply this expertise to address our key question, 'Do male mice prefer to live on their own?' We have developed a programme of research which will look at different housing conditions and social structures. We want to provide objective evidence of the best approaches to male mouse housing and husbandry to minimise cumulative suffering and improve scientific outcomes through reduced stress and its impact on the variability of the data and therefore the numbers of animals needed for a particular experiment. Whilst our primary aim is to understand the impact of group versus individual housing, we also have designed experiments to test whether careful management of the cage environment could enable mice to achieve a more natural social structure even within the much smaller cage environment.We anticipate that these studies will provide clear and objective measures of the welfare implications of different housing conditions. This knowledge can be used by animal technicians, researchers, vets, ethical review bodies, the Home Office and policy makers to make informed decisions about husbandry procedures based on knowledge of the welfare implications of the different options and the balance between providing social contact (sensory and/or physical) but avoiding social stress, fighting, injury and death.

小鼠是最常用的实验室动物物种。他们为研究人员提供了哺乳动物生理学的模型生物体，该生物概述了人类生物学中看到的许多正常和病理过程。在过去几十年中，最重要的科学进步之一就是能够操纵小鼠的遗传学创建新型突变，这些突变可用于回答重要的科学问题。现在，遗传改变的小鼠代表了在研究中使用的大部分动物，而小鼠菌落的管理是一个可以在动物福利中获得巨大好处的领域，但同样（即使不是最佳）也可以造成巨大的福利成本和累积的痛苦。这些动物的住房环境是可以在动物一生中产生最大影响的区域。尽管动物通常不会显示出与住房环境相关的遇险迹象，但在雄性老鼠中并非如此。男性在性成熟时战斗会导致严重伤害甚至死亡。即使动物没有显示出身体伤害的证据，这些群体中的动物也有慢性社会压力。在科学界，人们普遍担心雄性小鼠的战斗以及如何最好地管理这一点。当前的信念是，小鼠是高度社交的，因此需要团体的社会住房才能达到最高的福利标准。但是，证据的证据非常多样化，而且出乎意料的限制。实际上，一些野生小鼠的研究表明，雄性可能不喜欢与其他男性同住。我们建议，尽管小鼠可能会​​从社会互动中受益，但这可能不会被限制（实验室笼）环境中的团体住房产生的社会压力所抵消。群体住房的社会压力也可能比与其他小鼠失去身体接触的后果更高。与该领域先前研究相关的主要局限性是缺乏客观方法来衡量长期，低水平的社会压力和累积痛苦的影响。实际上，直到最近，已经开发了方法，可以可靠地衡量直接反映动物情感状态的行为，因此可以提供福利结果的衡量。我们的研究小组是具有率先衡量啮齿动物情感状态的方法的研究小组之一。我们是从事啮齿动物抑郁症研究模型领域的领先小组之一，现在我们想应用这一专业知识来解决我们的关键问题：“雄性老鼠宁愿独自生活？”我们已经开发了一项研究计划，该计划将研究不同的住房条件和社会结构。我们希望提供客观的证据，证明雄性小鼠住房和饲养的最佳方法，以最大程度地减少累积苦难，并通过减轻压力及其对数据变异性的影响以及特定实验所需的动物数量来改善科学结果。尽管我们的主要目的是了解群体与单个住房的影响，但我们还设计了实验，以测试仔细管理笼子环境是否可以使小鼠甚至在较小的笼子环境中达到更自然的社会结构。我们预计，这些研究将提供明确的客观衡量不同住房条件的福利含义。动物技术人员，研究人员，兽医，道德审查机构，内政部和政策制定者可以使用这些知识，以根据对不同选择的福利含义以及提供社会接触（感觉和/或身体）之间的平衡做出明智的决定，但要避免社会压力，斗争，伤害和死亡。