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式生物，重现了人类生物学中看到的许多正常和病理过程。在过去的几十年里，最重要的科学进步之一是能够操纵小鼠的遗传学，创造新的突变，可用于回答重要的科学问题。转基因小鼠现在占研究中使用的动物的很大一部分，小鼠群体的管理是一个可以在动物福利方面获得巨大利益的领域，但同样，如果不是最佳的话，也会产生显著的福利成本和累积的痛苦。这些动物的居住环境是在动物一生中可以产生最大影响的区域。虽然动物通常不会表现出与其居住环境相关的明显的痛苦迹象，但在雄性小鼠中并非如此。性成熟的雄性之间的争斗会导致严重的伤害甚至死亡。即使动物没有表现出身体伤害的证据，这些群体圈养的动物也有可能产生慢性社会压力。在科学界中，人们普遍关注雄性小鼠的战斗以及如何最好地管理这种情况。目前的看法是，老鼠是高度社会化的，因此需要群体的社会住房，以达到最高的福利标准。然而，这方面的证据是相当多样的，令人惊讶的是有限的。事实上，一些对野生老鼠的研究表明，雄性老鼠可能不喜欢与其他雄性老鼠生活在一起。我们建议，虽然小鼠可能会受益于社会交往，这可能不会被抵消的社会压力所产生的群体住房在一个有限的（实验室笼）的环境。也有可能群体居住的社会压力比失去与其他小鼠的身体接触的后果具有更高的福利成本。与这一领域以前的研究相关的一个主要限制是缺乏客观的方法来衡量长期的影响，低水平的社会压力和累积的痛苦。事实上，直到最近才开发出能够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测量。我们的研究小组是那些开创性的方法来衡量啮齿动物的情感状态之一。我们是抑郁症研究啮齿动物模型领域的领先团队之一，我们现在想应用这一专业知识来解决我们的关键问题，“雄性小鼠喜欢自己生活吗？”“我们已经制定了一项研究计划，将研究不同的住房条件和社会结构。我们希望提供客观证据，证明雄性小鼠圈养和饲养的最佳方法，以减少累积的痛苦，并通过减少压力及其对数据变异性的影响来改善科学成果，从而减少特定实验所需的动物数量。虽然我们的主要目的是了解群体与个人住房的影响，我们也设计了实验，以测试是否精心管理的笼子环境可以使小鼠实现一个更自然的社会结构，即使在更小的笼子环境。我们预计，这些研究将提供明确和客观的措施，不同的住房条件的福利影响。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（感官和/或身体）与避免社会压力、战斗、伤害和死亡之间的平衡，对畜牧程序做出明智的决定。