Burrowing and nest building behavior as indicators of well-being in mice

Abstract

The assessment of pain, distress and suffering, as well as evaluation of the efficacy of stressreduction strategies, is crucial in animal experimentation but can be challenging in laboratory mice. Nest building and burrowing performance, observed in the home cage, have proved to be valuable and easy-touse tools to assess brain damage or malfunction as well as neurodegenerative diseases. Both behaviors are used as parameters in models of psychiatric disorders or to monitor sickness behavior following infection. Their use has been proposed in more realistic and clinically relevant preclinical models of disease, and reduction of these behaviors seems to be especially useful as an early sign of dysfunction and to monitor disease progression. Finally, both behaviors are reduced by pain and stress. Therefore, in combination with specific disease markers, changes in nest building and burrowing performance may help provide a global picture of a mouse's state, and thus aid monitoring to ensure well-being in animal experimentation.

ApoE2 Exaggerates PTSD-Related Behavioral, Cognitive, and Neuroendocrine Alterations

“…In mice, nest building has been used to assess distress and suffering, as well as hippocampal damage (Deacon et al, 2002) and neurodegeneration (Cramer et al, 2012;Wesson and Wilson, 2011), and may share neuropsychiatric features with measures of ADL (Deacon, 2012;Jirkof, 2014). We observed diminished nest building behavior in E2/E2 mice 2 days after fear conditioning.…”

“…Activities of daily living (ADL) are often disrupted during PTSD (Zatzick et al, 2008), and typical mouse behaviors such as nest building reflect general well-being and may share some psychiatric features with measures of ADL in humans (Deacon, 2012;Jirkof, 2014). CVS reduced nesting scores in all groups compared with baseline (Figures 3b and c) (Po0.05).…”

Morphological and behavioral characterization of adult mice deficient for SrGAP3

“…Since the non-maternal nest building performance has been shown to be sensitive to hippocampus changes (Jirkof 2014), we analyzed nest building behavior in these mice, but we were unable to detect significant changes in this behavior.…”

“…Nest building Non-maternal nest building performance has been shown to be sensitive to hippocampus damage (Jirkof 2014) and is sensitive for anxiolytic agents (Li et al 2006). Nest building was analyzed using a standard protocol (Deacon 2006a).…”

Oral Communications

“…Some reasonably well validated measures have been established for use following abdominal surgery in rats and mice (Wright-Williams et al, 2013), but methods that can be used following a wide range of different surgical procedures are not yet fully established. Measures that may prove valuable include assessment of nest-building, burrowing or digging behavior (Jirkof, 2014), and use of facial expressions (Leach et al, 2012). Even when pain assessment tools are available, sufficient time must be provided to employ them effectively.…”