Recommendations for measuring and standardizing light for laboratory mammals to improve welfare and reproducibility in animal research.

ABSTRACT: Light enables vision and exerts widespread effects on physiology and behavior, including regulating circadian rhythms, sleep, hormone synthesis, affective state, and cognitive processes. Appropriate lighting in animal facilities may support welfare and ensure that animals enter experiments in an appropriate physiological and behavioral state. Furthermore, proper consideration of light during experimentation is important both when it is explicitly employed as an independent variable and as a general feature of the environment. This Consensus View discusses metrics to use for the quantification of light appropriate for nonhuman mammals and their application to improve animal welfare and the quality of animal research. It provides methods for measuring these metrics, practical guidance for th

SUBMITTER: Lucas RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10931507 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature