ArticleMolecular metabolism2018
Optimal housing temperatures for mice to mimic the thermal environment of humans: An experimental study.
Article in Molecular metabolism, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 167 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
167 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 266 citations in OpenAlex.
- Under Control? Mouse Models of Heat Exposure: A Systematic Review of Experimental Design and Methodology.Acta physiologica (Oxford, England) · 2026Pooled it
- A nitroalkene derivative of salicylate, SANA, induces creatine-dependent thermogenesis and promotes weight loss.Nature metabolism · 2025Trial
- Establishment and Validation of a Novel Microgravity Simulation Platform for Ground-Based Animal Experiments.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Prolactin receptor signalling contributes to the attenuation of stress-induced hyperthermia during pregnancy.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Inducible chronic NAD deficiency in mice reveals multi-systemic phenotypical, metabolic, and transcriptional changes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Housing Mice in Thermoneutrality Causes Tissue-specific Changes in Number, Identity, and Phase of Circadian-expressed mRNA Transcripts.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Metabolic responses to physiological stressors assessed using continuous glucose monitoring integrated with indirect calorimetry in mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Welfare Assessment of Female BALB/c Mice Housed with Different Environmental Enrichment Materials.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Role of GIRK2 channels in morphine-induced metabolite changes in the rostral ventromedial medulla.Magnetic resonance imaging · 2026Article
- DICER-driven regulation of lipid metabolism and macrophage-adipocyte crosstalk in partial lipodystrophy.Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2026Article
- Proanthocyanidin-Rich Cranberry Extract Lowers Glycemia in Established Obesity by Delaying Glucose Absorption.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2026Article
- Enhanced metabolic benefits of dietary methionine restriction in cold resistant hybrid UCP1-deficient mice.The Journal of nutritional biochemistry · 2026Article
- Time-restricted feeding extends healthspan in both sexes and lifespan in male C57BL/6 J mice.Nature aging · 2026Article
- Spaceflight and the rodent skeleton: A perspective.Bone reports · 2026Review
- Western diet-induced MASH in PWK/PhJ mice identifies disruptions in amino acid and sphingolipid metabolism contributing to cardiac dysfunction.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ambient temperature regulates CD4iScience · 2026Article
- The effects of housing temperature on mouse physiology and implications for disease modeling.Lab animal · 2026Review
- Enhancing Rodent Welfare, Cost Savings, and Efficiency: Implementation and Review of Data-Driven Improvements.Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2026Review
- Thermoregulatory adaptations to cold in C3H/HeJ mice are independent of ADRB3 signaling.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Neither rats nor mice have a broad thermoneutral zone: implications for physiological studies.Communications biology · 2026Article
107 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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 at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe laboratory mouse is presently the most common model for examining mechanisms of human physiology and disease. Housing temperatures can have a large impact on the outcome of such experiments and on their translatability to the human situation. Humans usually create for themselves a thermoneutral environment without cold stress, while laboratory mice under standard conditions (≈20° C) are under constant cold stress. In a well-cited, theoretical paper by Speakman and Keijer in Molecular Metabolism, it was argued that housing mice under close to standard conditions is the optimal way of modeling the human metabolic situation. This tenet was mainly based on the observation that humans usually display average metabolic rates of about 1.6 times basal metabolic rate. The extra heat thereby produced would also be expected to lead to a shift in the 'lower critical temperature' towards lower temperatures.
methodsTo examine these tenets experimentally, we performed high time-resolution indirect calorimetry at different environmental temperatures on mice acclimated to different housing temperatures.
resultsBased on the high time-resolution calorimetry analysis, we found that mice already under thermoneutral conditions display mean diurnal energy expenditure rates 1.8 times higher than basal metabolism, remarkably closely resembling the human situation. At any temperature below thermoneutrality, mice metabolism therefore exceeds the human equivalent: Mice under standard conditions display energy expenditure 3.1 times basal metabolism. The discrepancy to previous conclusions is probably attributable to earlier limitations in establishing true mouse basal metabolic rate, due to low time resolution. We also found that the fact that mean energy expenditure exceeds resting metabolic rate does not move the apparent thermoneutral zone (the lower critical temperature) downwards.
conclusionsWe show that housing mice at thermoneutrality is an advantageous step towards aligning mouse energy metabolism to human energy metabolism.
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.