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

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动物物种。它们为研究人员提供了哺乳动物生理学的模型生物，它概括了人类生物学中看到的许多正常和病理过程。过去几十年最重要的科学进步之一是能够操纵小鼠的遗传学来产生可用于回答重要科学问题的新突变。现在，转基因小鼠在研究中使用的动物中占很大比例，小鼠群体的管理可以在动物福利方面带来巨大好处，但同样，即使不是最佳的，也会造成巨大的福利成本和累积的痛苦。这些动物的居住环境是对动物一生影响最大的区域。虽然动物通常不会表现出与其居住环境相关的明显痛苦迹象，但雄性小鼠的情况并非如此。雄性性成熟时的打斗可能会导致严重伤害甚至死亡。即使动物没有表现出身体受伤的证据，这些群养动物也可能会承受长期的社会压力。科学界普遍关注雄性小鼠的打斗行为以及如何最好地解决这一问题。目前的观点是，老鼠具有高度的社会性，因此需要群体性的社会住房才能达到最高的福利标准。然而，这方面的证据多种多样，而且令​​人惊讶地有限。事实上，一些对野生小鼠的研究表明，雄性小鼠可能不愿意与其他雄性小鼠一起生活。我们认为，虽然小鼠可能从社交互动中受益，但这可能不会被限制（实验室笼子）环境中集体饲养所产生的社会压力所抵消。集体饲养的社会压力也可能比与其他老鼠失去身体接触的后果更高的福利成本。该领域先前研究的一个主要限制是缺乏客观的方法来衡量长期、低水平的社会压力和累积痛苦的影响。事实上，直到最近才开发出可以可靠地测量直接反映动物情感状态的行为的方法，从而可以提供福利结果的衡量标准。我们的研究小组是率先测量啮齿类动物情感状态方法的研究小组之一。我们是抑郁症研究啮齿动物模型领域的领先团队之一，现在我们希望运用这些专业知识来解决我们的关键问题：“雄性小鼠更喜欢独自生活吗？”我们制定了一项研究计划，研究不同的住房条件和社会结构。我们希望提供雄性小鼠饲养和饲养的最佳方法的客观证据，通过减少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，最大限度地减少累积痛苦并改善科学成果。虽然我们的主要目标是了解群体与个体饲养的影响，但我们还设计了实验来测试对笼子环境的仔细管理是否可以使小鼠即使在更小的笼子环境中也能实现更自然的社会结构。我们预计这些研究将为不同住房条件对福利的影响提供明确和客观的衡量标准。动物技术人员、研究人员、兽医、伦理审查机构、内政部和政策制定者可以利用这些知识，根据不同选择的福利影响以及提供社会接触（感官）之间的平衡，对饲养程序做出明智的决定。和/或身体上的），但避免社交压力、打架、受伤和死亡。