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Kahnau, P.* ; Hölter, S.M. ; Voikar, V.* ; Meziane, H.* ; Lang, B.* ; Diederich, K.* ; Lewejohann, L.* ; Hohlbaum, K.*

A systematic review of the development and application of home cage monitoring in laboratory mice and rats.

BMC Biol. 21:23 (2023)
DOI PMC
Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag
Open Access Gold as soon as Publ. Version/Full Text is submitted to ZB.
Background: Traditionally, in biomedical animal research, laboratory rodents are individually examined in test apparatuses outside of their home cages at selected time points. However, the outcome of such tests can be influenced by various factors and valuable information may be missed when the animals are only monitored for short periods. These issues can be overcome by longitudinally monitoring mice and rats in their home cages. To shed light on the development of home cage monitoring (HCM) and the current state-of-the-art, a systematic review was carried out on 521 publications retrieved through PubMed and Web of Science. Results: Both the absolute (~ × 26) and relative (~ × 7) number of HCM-related publications increased from 1974 to 2020. There was a clear bias towards males and individually housed animals, but during the past decade (2011–2020), an increasing number of studies used both sexes and group housing. In most studies, animals were kept for short (up to 4 weeks) time periods in the HCM systems; intermediate time periods (4–12 weeks) increased in frequency in the years between 2011 and 2020. Before the 2000s, HCM techniques were predominantly applied for less than 12 h, while 24-h measurements have been more frequent since the 2000s. The systematic review demonstrated that manual monitoring is decreasing in relation to automatic techniques but still relevant. Until (and including) the 1990s, most techniques were applied manually but have been progressively replaced by automation since the 2000s. Independent of the year of publication, the main behavioral parameters measured were locomotor activity, feeding, and social behaviors; the main physiological parameters were heart rate and electrocardiography. External appearance-related parameters were rarely examined in the home cages. Due to technological progress and application of artificial intelligence, more refined and detailed behavioral parameters have been investigated in the home cage more recently. Conclusions: Over the period covered in this study, techniques for HCM of mice and rats have improved considerably. This development is ongoing and further progress as well as validation of HCM systems will extend the applications to allow for continuous, longitudinal, non-invasive monitoring of an increasing range of parameters in group-housed small rodents in their home cages.
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Publication type Article: Journal article
Document type Scientific Article
Corresponding Author
Keywords Animal Welfare ; Behavior ; History ; Home Cage Monitoring ; Mice ; Physiology ; Rats ; Refinement ; Rodents ; Sex Bias; Open-field; Exploratory-behavior; Murine Model; Stress; Anxiety; Aggression; C57bl/6j; Female; Environment; Responses
e-ISSN 1741-7007
Journal BMC Biology
Quellenangaben Volume: 21, Issue: 1, Pages: , Article Number: 23 Supplement: ,
Publisher BioMed Central
Publishing Place Campus, 4 Crinan St, London N1 9xw, England
Non-patent literature Publications
Reviewing status Peer reviewed
Institute(s) Institute of Developmental Genetics (IDG)
Grants COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)
COST Action "Improving biomedical research by automated behaviour monitoring in the animal home-cage"
cost-teatime.org) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).
CA20135
This article is based upon work from COST Action "Improving biomedical research by automated behaviour monitoring in the animal home-cage" (TEATIME