Assessing nest building in mice

Abstract

For small rodents, nests are important in heat conservation as well as reproduction and shelter. Nesting is easily measured in the home cages of mice, particularly with the advent of pressed cotton materials. The mice first shred the tightly packed material, then arrange it into a nest. Published studies have often used materials such as hay, twine or tissues, sometimes preshredded, and have assigned scores of the quality of the resulting nest with rather rudimentary rating scales; e.g., 0, no nest; 1, flat nest; 2, nest covering the mouse. The protocol described here uses pressed cotton squares and a definitive 5-point nest-rating scale. Any unshredded material left after a bout of nesting can also be weighed, providing a semi-independent objective assay of nesting ability. Nesting has been shown to be sensitive to brain lesions, pharmacological agents and genetic mutations. This is a simple, cheap and easily done test that, along with other tests of species-typical behavior, is a sensitive assay for identifying previously unknown behavioral phenotypes. The test needs to be done overnight, but it should take no more than 5 minutes to set up plus 1 minute to assess one nest and weigh the untorn residue.

The clock genePeriod1regulates innate routine behaviour in mice

“…The hippocampal formation is involved in both learning and the execution of innate routine behaviour [21][22][23]49].…”

“…To analyse the nest-building behaviour of WT and Per1 2/2 mice, a standardized five-point scale protocol was used [22]. Since mice build their nest during the dark period [1], a single condensed piece of hemp fibre (Happi-Mat, Scanbur-Nova SCB, Sollentuna, Sweden) was placed in the cage 1 h before onset of darkness.…”

“…Since mice build their nest during the dark period [1], a single condensed piece of hemp fibre (Happi-Mat, Scanbur-Nova SCB, Sollentuna, Sweden) was placed in the cage 1 h before onset of darkness. Twenty-four hours later the status of the nest material was evaluated using a standardized scale [22].…”

Maternal immune activation alters brain microRNA expression in mouse offspring

“…Assessment for nest building was performed as previously described 20. Briefly, the tested mice were moved to a cage with wood‐chip bedding and one Nestlet (Ancare, Bellmore, NY, USA), ~1 h before the dark phase.…”

Epistatic and Independent Effects on Schizophrenia-Related Phenotypes Following Co-disruption of the Risk Factors Neuregulin-1 × DISC1

“…24 Deficits in nesting behavior have been hypothesized to relate to self-neglect and impairment in social functioning in schizophrenia. 25 Nest building behavior is assessed by singly-housing the experimental animal in a new cage containing nesting material and scoring the quality of the nest constructed 24 hours later. Male DISC1 HET demonstrated reduced nest weight and nest quality (DISC1 × sex, F(2,64) = 3.43, P = .04; HET vs WT, HET vs HOM, P < .05; figure 3D).…”