Special Issue "Improving Research Animal Welfare and Quality of Science"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Welfare".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Mark J. Prescott
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), London, UK
Interests: animal behaviour; animal ethics; animal welfare; primatology; research methods; 3Rs
Dr. Melanie L. Graham
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Surgery, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA
Interests: animal behavior; primates; 3Rs; animal disease models; animal welfare; cell-based therapies; metabolic disease; surgery; transplantation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Improving the welfare of animals used in research is important not only for ethical and legal reasons but also because poor welfare can impact negatively on the quality of science derived from them. Animals with compromised welfare have disturbed behavior, physiology, and immunology, which can introduce confounds into experiments and unwanted variation in scientific output, affecting both the reliability and repeatability of research results. It follows that to ensure good science, research animals should have normal behavior and physiology, apart from the specific adverse effects under investigation. Reducing unnecessary pain, suffering, and/or distress will reduce between-animal variation, meaning that meaningful biological effects can be detected from a reduced number of animals.

Recent years have seen the development and validation of a variety of refinements to scientific and husbandry procedures that improve animal welfare. Evidence is growing that such refinements can also benefit scientific outcomes. For example, non-aversive methods of picking up laboratory mice reduce anxiety, which leads to better performance in behavioral tests and phenotypic assays. Training non-human primate diabetes models for voluntary cooperation with their medical care obviates the need for stressful restraint, improving their well-being and avoiding confounding effects on metabolic outcome measures that are sensitive to stress, thereby increasing model validity. Improvements in the design of implanted devices, surgical techniques, and use of asepsis across a range of disciplines have reduced infection and inflammation, meaning data collection can continue uninterrupted and with fewer drop-out animals due to welfare complications.

This Special Issue will feature research that demonstrates the link between improving animal welfare and improving the quality of science or scientific outcomes. Original manuscripts that report new scientific findings on any aspect of this link are invited. Please note, submitted manuscripts should adhere to the ARRIVE Guidelines, which have recently been revised: https://arriveguidelines.org/.

Dr. Mark J. Prescott
Dr. Melanie L. Graham
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • animal behavior
  • animal welfare
  • distress
  • laboratory research
  • pain
  • quality of science
  • stress
  • refinement
  • reliability
  • reproducibility
  • validity
  • variation
  • wellbeing

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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Article
Temperament Predicts the Quality of Social Interactions in Captive Female Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta)
Animals 2021, 11(8), 2452; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11082452 - 20 Aug 2021
Viewed by 356
Abstract
Previous reports suggest that female macaques with greater similarity in emotionality and nervous temperament, as evaluated in a well-established BioBehavioral Assessment (BBA) at the California National Primate Research Center, were more likely to form successful pairs. We tested whether the same measures can [...] Read more.
Previous reports suggest that female macaques with greater similarity in emotionality and nervous temperament, as evaluated in a well-established BioBehavioral Assessment (BBA) at the California National Primate Research Center, were more likely to form successful pairs. We tested whether the same measures can also predict the quality of social interactions among 20 female rhesus macaque pairs. We correlated the pairs’ emotionality and nervous temperament scores obtained in infancy and the levels of behaviors recorded systematically during the pairing process years later. Supporting previous findings, partners with similar emotionality scores were more affiliative, and pairs with similar nervous temperament expressed less dominance/submissive behavior. Exploratorily, we found that pairs that were better at processing social information (part of BBA) were also more anxious. Such animals should be prioritized to be introduced in rooms that house calmer, less aggressive animals and provide opportunities for hiding to alleviate their anxiety. Indeed, positive social experiences not only promote animal welfare, but also reduce stress related confounds and unexplained data variability. Therefore, by incorporating the animals’ temperament into the pair configuration process we increase the likelihood of forming high-quality pairs, both in terms of welfare and the research of which they are a part. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Research Animal Welfare and Quality of Science)
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Article
Improved Training and Semen Collection Outcomes Using the Closed Box Chair for Macaques
Animals 2021, 11(8), 2384; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11082384 - 12 Aug 2021
Viewed by 438
Abstract
Collaborative semen collection in monkeys is a valuable tool in research, animal collection management, and conservation efforts. To obtain samples, monkeys are often restrained in open restraint chairs (ORC) with the “pole and collar” technique. While commonly used, this restraint is not tolerated [...] Read more.
Collaborative semen collection in monkeys is a valuable tool in research, animal collection management, and conservation efforts. To obtain samples, monkeys are often restrained in open restraint chairs (ORC) with the “pole and collar” technique. While commonly used, this restraint is not tolerated by all individuals; some become anxious or aggressive towards the poles and people. In an effort to refine this procedure and improve welfare of the monkeys, we examined the use of a “closed box chair” (CBC), a clear, plexiglass box in which the monkey is trained to sit for sperm collection. The CBC does not require pole and collar, and although legs are secured, the arms and neck are not restrained. The use of CBCs has increased in recent years; however, there are few studies demonstrating its effects on scientific outcomes. We used positive reinforcement techniques to train 34 adult male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to provide semen samples using either the ORC or the CBC. While all CBC monkeys (n = 14) were reliably trained for this procedure, only 75% of ORC (n = 20) males completed the training (p = 0.04). It took significantly less time to train animals in the CBC than the ORC (201.0 vs. 412.4 min; p <0.001). In a controlled subset, males restrained with ORC (n = 7) produced a significantly lower ejaculatory volume than those collected by CBC (n = 10) (297.6 µL vs. 522.1 µL respectively; p = 0.04) and had a lower concentration of sperm (186.0 × 106/mL vs. 367.5 × 106/mL respectively; p = 0.017), although there were no differences with respect to sperm motility (p = 0.15). Our data suggest the closed box chair technique reduces stress on the animals while enhancing semen quality, supporting the use of the CBC as an important refinement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Research Animal Welfare and Quality of Science)
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Review

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Review
Knowledge of Biobehavioral Organization Can Facilitate Better Science: A Review of the BioBehavioral Assessment Program at the California National Primate Research Center
Animals 2021, 11(8), 2445; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11082445 - 20 Aug 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 376
Abstract
Animals vary on intrinsic characteristics such as temperament and stress responsiveness, and this information can be useful to experimentalists for identifying more homogeneous subsets of animals that show consistency in risk for a particular research outcome. Such information can also be useful for [...] Read more.
Animals vary on intrinsic characteristics such as temperament and stress responsiveness, and this information can be useful to experimentalists for identifying more homogeneous subsets of animals that show consistency in risk for a particular research outcome. Such information can also be useful for balancing experimental groups, ensuring animals within an experiment have similar characteristics. In this review, we describe the BioBehavioral Assessment Program at the California National Primate Research Center, which, since its inception in 2001, has been providing quantitative information on intrinsic characteristics to scientists for subject selection and balancing, and to colony management staff for management purposes. We describe the program and review studies relating to asthma, autism, behavioral inhibition, etc., where the BBA Program was used to select animals. We also review our work, showing that factors such as rearing, ketamine exposure, and prenatal experience can affect biobehavioral organization in ways that some investigators might want to control for in their studies. Attention to intrinsic characteristics of subject populations is consistent with the growing interest in precision medicine and can lead to a reduction in animal numbers, savings in time and money for investigators, and reduced distress for the animals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Research Animal Welfare and Quality of Science)
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