Effects of more natural housing conditions on the muscular and skeletal characteristics of female C57BL/6J mice.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Enrichment of home cages in laboratory experiments offers clear advantages, but has been criticized in some respects. First, there is a lack of definition, which makes methodological uniformity difficult. Second, there is concern that the enrichment of home cages may increase the variance of results in experiments. Here, the influence of more natural housing conditions on physiological parameters of female C57BL/6J mice was investigated from an animal welfare point of view. For this purpose, the animals were kept in three different housing conditions: conventional cage housing, enriched housing and the semi naturalistic environment. The focus was on musculoskeletal changes after long-term environmental enrichment.

Results

The housing conditions had a long-term eff

SUBMITTER: Mieske P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10186785 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature