Dopamine Transporter Knockout Rats Show Impaired Wellbeing in a Multimodal Severity Assessment Approach.

ABSTRACT: In preclinical psychiatry research, animals are central to modeling and understanding biological mechanisms of behavior and psychiatric disorders. We here present the first multimodal severity assessment of a genetically modified rat strain used in psychiatric research, lacking the dopamine transporter (DAT) gene and showing endophenotypes of several dopamine-associated disorders. Absence of the DAT leads to high extracellular dopamine (DA) levels and has been associated with locomotor hyperactivity, compulsive behaviors and stereotypies in the past. The German Animal Welfare Law, which is based on the EU Directive (2010/63/EU), requires a prospective severity assessment for every animal experiment, depending on the extent of the expected degree of pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm

SUBMITTER: Mallien AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9309546 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature