Making lab mice comfortable found to generate better results

Making laboratory mice warm and comfortable could make tests more transferable, according to a recent study.

Joseph Garner, PhD, from Stanford University School of Medicine, found that many drug experimentations are failing to be successfully trialed on humans because the laboratory mice used in the initial testing are too cold. This leads to the animals becoming cold-stressed and producing higher metabolic rates, which have to be compensated for in the studies.

Dr Gartner said: "This will change all aspects of their physiology- such as how fast the liver breaks down a drug- which can't help but increase the chance that a drug will behave differently in mice and in humans."

To achieve desired levels of comfort and heat, researchers don’t have to be concerned with much more than simply providing the animals with proper materials.

Given house-building substances, the mice will create nests themselves, leading to thermally content mice which are more physiologically comparable to humans and thus might serve as more meaningful research subjects.

Posted by Ben Evans