81 research outputs found
The Assessment of Post-Vasectomy Pain in Mice Using Behaviour and the Mouse Grimace Scale
Background: Current behaviour-based pain assessments for laboratory rodents have significant limitations. Assessment of facial expression changes, as a novel means of pain scoring, may overcome some of these limitations. The Mouse Grimace Scale appears to offer a means of assessing post-operative pain in mice that is as effective as manual behavioural-based scoring, without the limitations of such schemes. Effective assessment of post-operative pain is not only critical for animal welfare, but also the validity of science using animal models. Methodology/Principal Findings: This study compared changes in behaviour assessed using both an automated system (‘‘HomeCageScan’’) and using manual analysis with changes in facial expressions assessed using the Mouse Grimace Scale (MGS). Mice (n = 6/group) were assessed before and after surgery (scrotal approach vasectomy) and either received saline, meloxicam or bupivacaine. Both the MGS and manual scoring of pain behaviours identified clear differences between the pre and post surgery periods and between those animals receiving analgesia (20 mg/kg meloxicam or 5 mg/kg bupivacaine) or saline post-operatively. Both of these assessments were highly correlated with those showing high MGS scores also exhibiting high frequencies of pain behaviours. Automated behavioural analysis in contrast was only able to detect differences between the pre and post surgery periods. Conclusions: In conclusion, both the Mouse Grimace Scale and manual scoring of pain behaviours are assessing th
Behavioural signs of pain in cats: an expert consensus
To identify where a consensus can be reached between veterinary experts in feline medicine on the core signs sufficient for pain (sufficient to indicate pain when they occur, but not necessarily present in all painful conditions) and necessary for pain (necessary in the presence of pain, but not always indicative of pain).
Methods
A modified Delphi technique was used, consisting of four rounds of questions and evaluation using nineteen participants during the period December 2014 and May 2015. Agreement was considered to be established when 80% of the experts concurred with the same opinion.
Results
Twenty-five signs were considered sufficient to indicate pain, but no single sign was considered necessary for it.
Discussion
Further studies are needed to evaluate the validity of these 25 behavioural signs if a specific pain assessment tool is to be developed that is capable of assessing pain in cats based on observational methods alone. The signs reported here may nonetheless help both vets and owners form an initial evaluation of the pain status of cats in their care
Automated Home-Cage Behavioural Phenotyping of Mice
Neurobehavioral analysis of mouse phenotypes requires the monitoring of mouse behavior over long
periods of time. Here, we describe a trainable computer vision system enabling the automated analysis
of complex mouse behaviors. We provide software and an extensive manually annotated video
database used for training and testing the system. Our system performs on par with human scoring, as
measured from ground-truth manual annotations of thousands of clips of freely behaving mice. As a
validation of the system, we characterized the home-cage behaviors of two standard inbred and two
non-standard mouse strains. From this data we were able to predict in a blind test the strain identity of
individual animals with high accuracy. Our video-based software will complement existing sensor
based automated approaches and enable an adaptable, comprehensive, high-throughput, fine-grained,
automated analysis of mouse behavior.McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchCalifornia Institute of Technology. Broad Fellows Program in Brain CircuitryNational Science Council (China) (TMS-094-1-A032
Improving the practicality of using non-aversive handling methods to reduce background stress and anxiety in laboratory mice
Handling can stimulate stress and anxiety in laboratory animals that negatively impacts welfare
and introduces a confounding factor in many areas of research. Picking up mice by the tail is a major
source of handling stress that results in strong aversion to the handler, while mice familiarised with
being picked up in a tunnel or cupped on the open hand show low stress and anxiety, and actively seek
interaction with their handlers. Here we investigate the duration and frequency of handling required for
effective familiarisation with these non-aversive handling methods, and test whether this is sufficient
to prevent aversion and anxiety when animals then experience immobilisation and a mild procedure
(subcutaneous injection). Very brief handling (2 s) was sufficient to familiarise mice with tunnel
handling, even when experienced only during cage cleaning. Brief but more frequent handling was
needed for familiarisation with cup handling, while pick up by tail induced strong aversion even when
handling was brief and infrequent. Experience of repeated immobilisation and subcutaneous injection
did not reverse the positive effects of tunnel handling. Our findings demonstrate that replacing tail with
tunnel handling during routine cage cleaning and procedures provides a major refinement with little if
any cost for familiarisation
Sufentanil and medetomidine anaesthesia in the rat and its reversal with atipamezole and butorphanol
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