ArticleScientific reports2018
Handling method alters the hedonic value of reward in laboratory mice.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers.
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.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are mice a bad model for successive negative contrast?Learning & behavior · 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
- Effects of Scruff Restraint and Handling-Tail and Tunnel-on Plasma Corticosterone in Female BALB/c Mice (Mus musculus).Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2026Article
- Peripartum sertraline impacts maternal neurobehavioral and neurodegenerative mechanisms in pregnant and postpartum mice.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Lack of evidence for a consistent differential impact of tail and tunnel handling on markers of welfare in laboratory mice.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Reduced Cacna1c Expression Produces Anhedonic Reactions to Palatable Sucrose in Rats: No Interactions With Juvenile or Adult Stress.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2025Article
- The effects of handling on mouse behavior: cupped hands versus familiar or novel huts or tunnels.PloS one · 2025Article
- The implementation of tunnel handling in a mouse breeding facility revealed strain-specific behavioural responses.Laboratory animals · 2024Article
- Physically stressed bees expect less reward in an active choice judgement bias test.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Influence of Diet on Reproducible Corticosterone Levels in a Mouse Model of Maternal Separation with Early Weaning.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Protocol to study dam-pup social transmission using a modified paradigm for transmission of food preference.STAR protocols · 2024Article
- A computational analysis of mouse behavior in the sucrose preference test.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Individualized Housing Modifies the Immune-Endocrine System in CD1 Adult Male Mice.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Using refined methods to pick up mice: A survey benchmarking prevalence & beliefs about tunnel and cup handling.PloS one · 2023Article
- A novel task to investigate vibrotactile detection in mice.PloS one · 2023Article
- Handling method affects measures of anxiety, but not chronic stress in mice.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Article
- Chronic Unpredictable Mild Stress Model of Depression: Possible Sources of Poor Reproducibility and Latent Variables.Biology · 2022Review
- Refinements to rodent head fixation and fluid/food control for neuroscience.Journal of neuroscience methods · 2022Review
- Impact of Refinements to Handling and Restraint Methods in Mice.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Mice are the most widely used model species for drug discovery and scientific research. Consequently, it is important to refine laboratory procedures and practices to ensure high standards of welfare and scientific data quality. Recent studies have identified that the standard practice of handling laboratory mice by their tails increases behaviours indicative of anxiety, which can be overcome by handling mice using a tunnel. However, despite clear negative effects on mice's behaviour, tunnel handling has yet to be widely implemented. In this study, we provide the first evidence that tail handling also reduces mice's responses to reward. Anhedonia is a core symptom of clinical depression, and is measured in rodents by assessing how they consume a sucrose solution: depressed mice consume less sucrose and the size of their licking bouts when drinking (their 'lick cluster sizes') also tend to be smaller. We found that tail handled mice showed more anhedonic responses in both measures compared to tunnel handled mice, indicative of a decreased responsiveness to reward and potentially a more depressive-like state. Our findings have significant implications for the welfare of laboratory mice as well as the design and interpretation of scientific studies, particularly those investigating or involving reward.
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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.