My Research

So, I thought that would include just one post (or maybe more if you guys wish) about what research I am doing. I am attempting to decrease stress in laboratory mice through cost effectively designing their cages to mimic their natural environment.

I am not going to go in depth on my methods, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Basically, I had three groups. Mice living in a standard laboratory cage, mice living in an enriched cage, and mice living in a natural cage. I measure stress levels and weights at multiple timepoints, when the mice were adults, pregnant, pups, pre/post-weaning.

I ultimately found that stress was significantly reduced in prenatal mothers living in the natural cage, and that natural cage pups had higher weaning weights and weight gain rates overall. This is good for the mice because low stress and high weight correspond to a healthier mouse. Increased prenatal maternal stress leads to decreased pup bodily functioning, and decreased pup weaning weights lead to increased chance of obesity later in life.

This also is good for the studies using these mice. If the mice are healthier, then they are more scientifically viable, and the results of the studies using the mice will be more reliable. This will lead to more efficient and less expensive treatments for patients using the medical system, and it will increase public health overall.

For this reason, I feel that more study should be done on this subject so that this natural cage system can be implemented in labs around the world. I hope to do more research in the upcoming years. If you have any questions, please ask!