ArticleFrontiers in veterinary science2023
Structural enrichment for laboratory mice: exploring the effects of novelty and complexity.
Article in Frontiers in veterinary science, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Environmental enrichment: a systematic review on the effect of a changing spatial complexity on hippocampal neurogenesis and plasticity in rodents, with considerations for translation to urban and built environments for humans.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Pooled it
- The influence of regularly changing enrichment on the cognitive judgement bias of laboratory rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A Scoping Review of Preclinical Environmental Enrichment Protocols in Models of Poststroke to Set the Foundations for Translating the Paradigm to Clinical Settings.Translational stroke research · 2025Article
- Introduction of novel objects to the home cage of mice repeatedly disturbs sleep for seven days with minimal stress induction.Npj biological timing and sleep · 2025Article
- Environmental enrichment for laboratory rats and mice: endocrine, physiological, and behavioral benefits of meeting rodents' biological needs.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2025Review
- Voluntary Wheel Running an Effective Intervention in the Management of Excessive Food Usage in CD-1 Mice (Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2024Article
- Lockbox enrichment facilitates manipulative and cognitive activities for mice.Open research Europe · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Providing structural enrichment is a widespread refinement method for laboratory rodents and other animals in captivity. So far, animal welfare research has mostly focused on the effect of increased complexity either by accumulating or combining different enrichment items. However, increasing complexity is not the only possibility to refine housing conditions. Another refinement option is to increase novelty by regularly exchanging known enrichment items with new ones. In the present study, we used pair-housed non-breeding female C57BL/6J and DBA/2N mice to investigate the effect of novelty when applying structural enrichment. We used a double cage system, in which one cage served as home cage and the other as extra cage. While the home cage was furnished in the same way for all mice, in the extra cage we either provided only space with no additional enrichment items (space), a fixed set of enrichment items (complexity), or a changing set of enrichment items (novelty). Over 5 weeks, we assessed spontaneous behaviors, body weight, and extra cage usage as indicators of welfare and preference. Our main results showed that mice with access to structurally enriched extra cages (complexity and novelty) spent more time in their extra cages and complexity mice had lower latencies to enter their extra cages than mice with access to the extra cages without any structural enrichment (space). This indicates that the mice preferred the structurally enriched extra cages over the structurally non-enriched space cages. We found only one statistically significant difference between the novelty and complexity condition: during week 3, novelty mice spent more time in their extra cages than complexity mice. Although we did not detect any other significant differences between the novelty and complexity condition in the present study, more research is required to further explore the potential benefits of novelty beyond complexity.
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