ArticleJournal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS2014
The social buffering effect of playful handling on responses to repeated intraperitoneal injections in laboratory rats.
Article in Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review and multivariate meta-analysis of the physical and mental health benefits of touch interventions.Nature human behaviour · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- From welfare indicator to welfare contributor: the role of play in building flexibility and resilience in captive animals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Effects of reduced kinematic and social play experience on affective appraisal of human-rat play in rats.Frontiers in zoology · 2023Article
- Positive maternal affect during mother-litter interaction is reduced in new mother rats exhibiting a depression-like phenotype.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Decreased levels of discomfort in repeatedly handled mice during experimental procedures, assessed by facial expressions.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress Model of Depression: Possible Sources of Poor Reproducibility and Latent Variables.Biology · 2022Review
- Biological Functions of Rat Ultrasonic Vocalizations, Arousal Mechanisms, and Call Initiation.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Post-weaning stroking stimuli induce affiliative behavior toward humans and influence brain activity in female rats.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Gentle stroking stimuli induce affiliative responsiveness to humans in male rats.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Tickling, a Technique for Inducing Positive Affect When Handling Rats.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2018Article
- The Effect of Gentle Handling on Depressive-Like Behavior in Adult Male Mice: Considerations for Human and Rodent Interactions in the Laboratory.Behavioural neurology · 2018Article
- Animal Models of Depression and Drug Delivery with Food as an Effective Dosing Method: Evidences from Studies with Celecoxib and Dicholine Succinate.BioMed research international · 2015Article
- Pharmacology of Ultrasonic Vocalizations in adult Rats: Significance, Call Classification and Neural Substrate.Current neuropharmacology · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Handling small animals for veterinary and experimental procedures can negatively affect animal wellbeing. We hypothesized that playful handling (tickling) would decrease stress associated with repeated injections in adult laboratory rats, especially those with prior tickling experience. We compared responses of 4 groups of male Sprague-Dawley rats to intraperitoneal injection of saline daily for 10 d. Rats either tickled or not tickled as juveniles (2 min/d for 21 d) were exposed as adults to either a passive hand or tickling for 2 min immediately before and after injections. Rates of vocalization (22- and 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USV), indicative of negative and positive affective states, respectively, and audible calls indicative of pain and discomfort) were quantified before, during, and after injection. Tickling before and after injection, especially when combined with juvenile tickling experience (ending 40 to 50 d earlier), increased 50-kHz USV rates before and after injection, reduced audible call rate during injection, and decreased the duration of the injection procedure. The treatments did not affect indicators of physiologic stress (body weight change; fecal corticosteroid levels). We conclude that playful handling performed in association with a mildly aversive procedure serves as a useful refinement by inducing a positive affective state that mitigates the aversiveness of the procedure and makes rats easier to handle, especially when they have been accustomed to tickling as juveniles.
Indexed as
Identifiers
24602543PMC3966273W80596329What 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.