02/02/22 - Tommaso (ESR #6)
What you see in the picture is one of the setups we use in the lab to observe behavior exhibited by the mice, which are very similar to those we can find in psychiatric disorders. The four arenas you see [1] can be used to simulate many different conditions (anxiety, stress disorders, autism...etc.) and so this system can be suited to the study of different psychopathologies. In my particular case, I am interested in reproducing a PTSD-like condition and correlating it with possible cardiovascular alterations.
Why are the mice colored? Well, we actually paint the fur of these mice with different colors to both help us to distinguish between the mice more easily and to help the DeepLabCut algorithm too. Setups like this can greatly improve behavioral studies, as previously explained, we leave the mice in a semi-natural environment with the best conditions for them to exhibit the behavior we are interested in, instead of forcing the animals. The advantages of this approach are a better quality of our results and an improved quality of life for the animals overall.
If you are interested and want to know more check out the reference.
Reference:
- Shemesh et al. 2013, High-order social interactions in groups of mice, eLIFE, http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00759.001