ENVIRONMENTAL ENRICHMENT IN STANDARD-SIZED CAGES: EFFECTS ON FEMALE SWISS MICE

CARBONE, CECILIA; RESASCO A; DIAZ S L; FOLTRAN R B

Mar del Plata

Congreso; Reunión Anual de Biociencias 2019; 2019

SAIC . SAFE . SAB . SAP . AACYTAL . NANOMED-ar . HCS

Environmental enrichment (EE) consists on increasing the complexity of the cages, which promotes the species? specific behavior. EE has been used to improve the welfare of laboratory animals as well as a treatment per se in neuroscience experiments. We aimed to study EE effects in standard-sized cages, on several biological parameters. Female SWISS mice were housed in 3 conditions (20 mice/group): no enrichment (NE), simple enrichment (SE), and complex enrichment (CE). The experiment lasted 8 weeks and afterwards, anxiety-like behavior was assessed using a modified-novelty suppressed feeding (NSF) test. Brains were collected to determine the survival of newborn cells in the hippocampus (HC). Additionally, corticosterone metabolites were measured in fecal samples. Mice in CE had higher levels of corticosterone in feces and behaved less anxiously in the NSF test than mice from the NE group (p