Environmental enrichment in female rodents: Considerations in the effects on behavior and biochemical markers

Environmental enrichment mitigates the sex-specific effects of gestational inflammation on social engagement and the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis-feedback system

“…In terms of female animals housed in EE, there have been inconsistencies on both the behavioral and neurochemical/hormonal outcomes reported (see Girbovan and Plamondon, 2013) and the benefits of this condition to females is underexplored. Like others, our females were unable to complete the object-in-place test (Howland et al, 2012) and we had hypothesized that the EE experience would improve spatial discrimination on this task.…”

Environmental enrichment modulates intrinsic cellular excitability of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells in a housing duration and anatomical location-dependent manner

“…The use of female mice reduced the number of animals sacrificed without being used for scientific projects. Although male EEs are more common, numerous EE studies have been done with females [9,17,43]. Due to the large sample size taken randomly throughout the housing period, any possible effect of the estrous cycle should be canceled out.…”

Sex differences in performance on a cognitive bias task in Norway rats

“…Future studies could also investigate whether factors that have previously been shown to impact upon the performance of male rats in cognitive bias tasks, such as stress exposure and changes in housing conditions (e.g., Brydges et al, 2011;Burman et al, 2008;Rygula et al, 2013), have similar, or different, effects in female rats. Female rats, for example, are thought to be less stressed than males when group-housed (Girbovan and Plamondon, 2013), and cognitive bias tasks might provide both a test of this hypothesis and, more broadly, provide a useful measure of affective state for revealing sex differences in animal welfare requirements. …”

“…Sex differences in cognitive bias are relevant to animal welfare, as effects of enrichment regimes and protocols can differ between female and male animals (Girbovan and Plamondon, 2013). Determining the link between affective state and cognition in rats could also increase our understanding of sex differences in cognitive bias and susceptibility to affective disorders in human beings (Gluck et al, 2014;Hales et al, 2014).…”