ArticlePloS one2013
How enrichment affects exploration trade-offs in rats: implications for welfare and well-being.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Bored at home?-A systematic review on the effect of environmental enrichment on the welfare of laboratory rats and mice.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Pooled it
- Effect of dairy calf rearing systems on affective states.Discover animals · 2026Review
- Relevance of state-behaviour feedbacks for animal welfare.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- The Effects of Enrichment on Zoo-Housed Scarlet Ibis Behavior.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- The Role of Preventative Medicine Programs in Animal Welfare and Wellbeing in Zoological Institutions.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Review
- The emotional impact of disrupted environmental contexts: Enrichment loss and coping profiles influence stress response recovery in Long-Evans rats.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Welfare Assessment Tools in Zoos: From Theory to Practice.Veterinary sciences · 2022Review
- Curiosity in zebrafish (Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Article
- Space, time, and context drive anticipatory behavior: Considerations for understanding the behavior of animals in human care.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Review
- Behavioural Response to the Environmental Changes of Various Types in Lister-Hooded Male Rats.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- A broader phenotype of persistence emerges from individual differences in response to extinction.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2018Article
- Article
- Effect of Cage-Induced Stereotypies on Measures of Affective State and Recurrent Perseveration in CD-1 and C57BL/6 Mice.PloS one · 2016Article
- Bird-Window Collisions: A Critical Animal Welfare and Conservation Issue.Journal of applied animal welfare science : JAAWS · 2015Article
- A Universal Animal Welfare Framework for Zoos.Journal of applied animal welfare science : JAAWS · 2015Article
- An Exploration Based Cognitive Bias Test for Mice: Effects of Handling Method and Stereotypic Behaviour.PloS one · 2015Article
- Truth, control, and value motivations: the "what," "how," and "why" of approach and avoidance.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We propose that a comparative approach to well-being could be the key to understanding 'the good life.' Inspired by current theories of human well-being and animal welfare, we designed a novel test of exploration behavior. Environmentally and socially enriched Long-Evans female rats (N = 60) were trained in four simultaneously presented arms of an eight-arm radial-maze. They learned to expect successes in two arms and failures in the other two. After training, 20 animals remained in enriched housing (enrichment-maintenance) while 40 animals were re-housed in standard, isolated conditions (enrichment-removal). Two weeks later, all animals were re-tested in the maze, initially with access to the four familiar arms only. In the final minute, they also had access to the unfamiliar ambiguous-arms. Though both groups showed significant interest in the ambiguous-arms (P<.0001), the enrichment-maintenance group showed a significantly greater exploratory tendency (P<.01) despite having equivalent levels of activity (P>.3). Thus, we show not only that rats will abandon known rewards and incur risk in order to explore, indicating that exploration is valuable in its own right, but also that individuals with (vs. without) enriched housing conditions are more likely to engage in such exploratory behavior. This novel test contributes to the body of knowledge examining the importance of exploration in humans and other animals; implications for animal welfare and human well-being are discussed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.