A5031840573- Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine
- Human-Animal Interaction Studies
- Circadian rhythm and melatonin
- Developmental Biology and Gene Regulation
- Nerve injury and regeneration
- Economic Theory and Institutions
- Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Pluripotent Stem Cells Research
- Neonatal and fetal brain pathology
- Resilience and Mental Health
- Neuroscience of respiration and sleep
- Sex and Gender in Healthcare
- Animal testing and alternatives
- Mental Health Research Topics
- COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Birth, Development, and Health
- Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurovascular Disturbances
- Axon Guidance and Neuronal Signaling
- Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity mechanisms
- Adipokines, Inflammation, and Metabolic Diseases
- Adipose Tissue and Metabolism
- Memory and Neural Mechanisms
University of Florida
2019-2025
University of Bern
2016-2021
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
2016
The manner in which laboratory rodents are housed is driven by economics (minimal use of space and resources), ergonomics (ease handling visibility animals), hygiene standardization (reduction variation). This has resulted housing conditions that lack sensory motor stimulation restrict the expression species–typical behavior. In mice, such have been associated with indicators impaired welfare, including abnormal repetitive behavior (stereotypies, compulsive behavior), enhanced anxiety stress...
A tacit assumption in laboratory animal research is that animals housed within the same cage or pen are phenotypically more similar than from different cages pens, due to their shared housing environment. This drives experimental design, randomization schemes, and statistical analysis plans, while neglecting social context. Here, we examined whether a domain of context-social dominance-accounted for phenotypic variation mice cage-identity. First, determined could be categorized into one...
Abstract Poor reproducibility is considered a serious problem in laboratory animal research, with important scientific, economic, and ethical implications. One possible source of conflicting findings research are environmental differences between facilities combined rigorous standardization within studies. Due to phenotypic plasticity, study-specific conditions during development can induce the animals’ responsiveness experimental treatments, thereby contributing poor results. Here, we...
The laboratory mouse is the most prevalent animal used in experimental procedures biomedical and behavioural sciences. Yet, many scientists fail to consider animals' social context. Within a cage, mice may differ their behaviour physiology depending on dominance relationships. Therefore, relationships be confounding factor experiments. current study housed male female C57BL/6ByJ same-sex groups of 5 standard conditions investigated whether hierarchies were present stable across three weeks,...
Developmental psychobiology (DPB) is a sub-discipline of developmental biology investigating the roles physiology, biomechanics, and environment on behavioral development. Regenerative also biology, studying how tissues organs heal regenerate after injury. One aspect healing regeneration recovery whole organism, involving nervous system coordinated movements in three-dimensional space. Behavioral often secondary measure many studies, primarily focusing molecular cellular mechanisms involved...
We studied how space allowance affects measures of animal welfare in mice by systematically varying group size and cage type across three levels each both males females two strains (C57BL/6ByJ BALB/cByJ; n = 216 cages, a total 1152 mice). This allowed us to disentangle the effects floor area, size, stocking density, individual allocation on broad range welfare, including growth (food water intake, body mass); stress physiology (glucocorticoid metabolites faecal boli); emotionality (open...
The African spiny mouse (Acomys cahirinus) is a unique mammalian model of tissue regeneration, regenerating 4 mm ear-hole punches with cartilage, adipocytes, hair follicles, and muscle. However, the time to regenerate ear varies from 20 90 days muscle regeneration inconsistent. Some report that older mice have delayed without investigation on regenerative capacity We thought inconsistent could be linked via age-related nerve degeneration. While current study found aged 6-9 months had...
The Morris Water Maze (MWM) is the most commonly used assay for evaluating learning and memory in laboratory mice. Despite its widespread use, contemporary reviews have highlighted substantial methodological variation experimental protocols that associated testing procedures are acutely (each trial) chronically (testing across days) stressful; stress impairs attention, consolidation retrieval of learned information. Moreover, interpretation behavior within MWM often difficult because wall...
Stroke is a major cause of disability for adults over 40 years age. While research into animal models has prioritized treatments aimed at diminishing post-stroke damage, no studies have investigated the response to severe stroke injury in highly regenerative adult mammal. Here we investigate effects transient ischemia on spiny mice, Acomys cahirinus, due their ability regenerate multiple tissues without scarring. Transient middle cerebral artery occlusion was performed and showed rapid...
Bite wounds due to aggression in male laboratory mice (Mus musculus) are a major welfare concern, often leading attrition, chronic activation of the innate immune system, and significant impacts on experimental results derived from use these animals as models. wounding within home-cage spiny (Acomys cahirinus)—a valuable research model for wound healing menstruation—is poorly characterized. While we have anecdotally observed frequent bite Acomys, frequency home-cage, severity wounds, types...
Exposure to chronic stress is associated with an increased incidence of neuropsychiatric dysfunction. The current study evaluated two competing hypotheses, the cumulative and match/mismatch hypothesis dysfunction, using paradigms relating exposure "stress": pre-weaning maternal separation post-weaning isolation-housing. C57BL/6 offspring were reared under four conditions: typical animal facility rearing (AFR, control), early handling (EH, daily 15 min from dam), (MS, 4 hr peer (MPS, dam...
Developmental psychobiology (DPB) is a sub-discipline of developmental biology investigating behavioral development. Regenerative also biology, studying how tissues and organs heal regenerate after injury. One aspect healing regeneration recovery, involving the nervous system coordinated movements. Behavioral recovery often secondary measure in many studies, primarily focusing on molecular cellular mechanisms. Integrating regenerative with DPB would provide basis for research systems as...
Abstract Spiny mice ( Acomys cahirinus ) are an emerging animal model in studies measuring tissue regeneration, but decades of research on social dominance other animals indicates the relationships form their home-cage may affect phenotypic plasticity regeneration and glucocorticoids. Studies baboons mice, for example, indicate that subordinate ranked heal wounds slower than dominant group-mates, have increased levels basal Recent with salamanders zebrafish glucocorticoids can delay whether...