Why is social behaviour in animals adversely affected by barren housing conditions?

贫穷的环境，如贫瘠的小笼子，会对动物之间的相互作用产生不利影响。 生产力所需的互动（例如交配，产妇护理）可能会受损;反映或导致良好福利的互动（例如游戏）往往会下降;侵略性往往会增加。这适用于许多物种，但在实验室小鼠中，例如，在生产和饲养可存活的幼崽方面，富裕圈养的小鼠比贫瘠圈养的小鼠更好，并且（特别是雌性小鼠）它们与笼中鼠的战斗更少。因此，我将研究行为，认知和2）焦虑和抑郁样变化（快感缺乏和消极判断偏见）如何减少积极社会互动的动机，并导致倾向于将中性社会线索解释为威胁。 小鼠（C57 B1/6，DBA/2）在社会学习任务中更善于展示信息;比不育的雌性更喜欢作为笼友;比不育的雌性更好的压力缓冲; B）富裕的雄性比不育的雄性更吸引雌性，并且在它们交配的那些中也诱导更好的母性关怀;和c）富裕的雌性是更好的母亲（例如，在幼仔取回测试中更快和更敏感），并且怀孕/哺乳期雌性更喜欢富裕的雌性而不是贫瘠的雌性作为共同的筑巢伙伴。作为发现的所有效应的潜在介质，我们将测试以下假设：i）丰富的小鼠不太坚持（帮助它们对不断变化的社会信号做出适当的调整），ii）丰富的小鼠发现社会接触比不育的小鼠更有益，威胁更小。 贫困的环境如何影响社会互动，以前从未有过系统的研究，测试中的假设是新颖的。这项工作具有广泛的应用，不仅适用于实验室小鼠育种者和殖民地管理者，而且还适用于农场，动物园和其他实验室动物，通过确定环境改善作为通过减少社会问题来提高生产力和福利的潜在方法。

Impoverished environments, such as small barren cages, can adversely affect animals' interactions with each other. Interactions needed for productivity (e.g. mating, maternal care) can be impaired; interactions that reflect or cause good welfare (e.g. play) often decline; and aggression often increases. This holds for many species, but in laboratory mice, for instance, enriched-housed mice are better than barren-housed mice at producing and raising viable pups, and (especially if female) they fight less with cagemates. I will therefore investigate how the behavioural, cognitive and 2) anxiety- and depression-like changes (anhedonia and negative judgment biases) reduce motivations for positive social interactions and cause predispositions to interpret neutral social cues as threatening. Mice (C57Bl/6, DBA/2 better at demonstrating information in social learning tasks; preferred over barren-raised females as cage-mates; and better stress buffers' than barren-raised females; b) enriched-raised males are more attractive to females, and also induce better maternal care in those that they mate, than barren-housed males; and c) enriched females are better mothers (e.g. faster & more responsive in pup retrieval tests), and that pregnant/lactating females prefer enriched females to barren-raised females as communal nesting partners. As potential mediators of all effects found, we will test the hypotheses that i) enriched mice are less perseverative (helping them make appropriate adjustments to changing social signals), and that ii) enriched mice find social contact more rewarding and less threatening than do barren-reared mice. How impoverished environments compromise social interactions has never before been systematically investigated, and the hypotheses under test are novel. This work has broad application, not just for laboratory mouse breeders & colony managers, but beyond to farm, zoo & other laboratory animals, via identifying environmental improvements as potential ways to boost both productivity and welfare by reducing social problems.