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Artificial weaning in laboratory mice elicits increased levels of exploratory and escape behaviour. Under barren housing conditions patterns of exploration and escape subsequently develop into stereotypic behaviour. Weaning weight in wild house mice, Mus musculus domesticus, is known to affect offspring fitness, thus reduced weaning weight represents a risk to fitness. In male ICR-mice, Mus musculus, precocious weaning 3 days prior to standard weaning age tended to decrease growth rate in the long term, and differences in weaning weight of mice weaned at the standard age persisted into adulthood. Both plasma corticosterone levels 48 h after weaning and adult stereotypy levels were higher in precociously weaned mice, but also in animals weaned at the usual age but at a low weight. These results suggest that potential costs in terms of fitness may affect stress levels at the onset of stereotypy development and predispose ICR-mice to perform stereotypies at a high level when adult. (C) 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour

Adult. --- Adulthood. --- Age. --- Animal behaviour. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Artificial. --- Association. --- Bank voles. --- Behaviour. --- Clethrionomys-glareolus. --- Coping hypothesis. --- Corticosterone. --- Cost. --- Costs. --- Development. --- Escape. --- Exploration. --- Growth. --- House mice. --- Housing conditions. --- Housing. --- Induced jumping stereotypy. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Level. --- Long-term. --- Male. --- Mice. --- Mus musculus. --- Mus-musculus-domesticus. --- Mus-musculus-l. --- Mus-musculus. --- Musculus. --- Pattern. --- Patterns. --- Plasma corticosterone. --- Plasma-corticosterone. --- Plasma. --- Reproductive success. --- Risk. --- Sex-ratio manipulation. --- Social-structure. --- Stereotypic behaviour. --- Stereotypic. --- Stereotypies. --- Stereotypy. --- Stress. --- Weaning age. --- Weaning. --- Weight. --- Wild house mice. --- Wild.

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Behaviour. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Mice. --- Physiology. --- Prevention. --- Stereotypies. --- Stereotypy. --- Stress.

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At 21 days of age, 16 pairs of male laboratory mice of the ICR strain were weaned and allocated to four treatment groups in a 2 x 2 factorial design matched for genetic background (litter) and body weight. Factor one was the hardness of the food pellets with a significant 2.5-fold difference between soft and hard feed. Factor two was the environment, with half of the mice being kept in barren standard cages, while the other half were additionally provided with a cardboard tube. Subjects were videotaped during the full 12-h dark period on three occasions: 3 days after weaning, when stereotypies start to develop (24 days), at an early stage of stereotypy development (34 days), and when adult with fully established stereotypies (80 days). Since feed hardness had no effect on time spent feeding, the absence of an effect of the feeding treatment on stereotypic wire-gnawing remains inconclusive with respect to the role of feeding motivation in the development of this stereotypy. The interaction between the development of feeding and wire-gnawing, respectively, does not, however, suggest a strong relationship. In contrast, enrichment significantly reduced stereotypic wire-gnawing in adults by 40% (F= 4.47, df = 1,26, p < 0.05), presumably as a consequence of the cover provided by the cardboard tubes. This is substantiated by observations that the tubes were used as a place to retreat upon disturbance as well as for resting. As a consequence, when adult the mice showed more resting (F = 6.46, df = 1,26, p < 0.05) and less grooming ( F = 9.79, df = 1,26, p < 0.01) in cages containing them, suggesting that mice with access to a cardboard tube land hence shelter) perceived a greater level of security in these cages. Cardboard tubes therefore provide a simple means of environmental enrichment to reduce the development of abnormal behaviours in laboratory mice and may thus be beneficial in terms of their well-being. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Abnormal behaviour. --- Absence. --- Access. --- Adult. --- Age. --- Animals. --- Behavior. --- Behaviour. --- Body weight. --- Body-weight. --- Cage. --- Calves. --- Design. --- Development. --- Enrichment. --- Environment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Feeding motivation. --- Feeding. --- Food. --- Genetic. --- Grooming. --- Group. --- Interaction. --- Kept. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Level. --- Male. --- Mice. --- Motivation. --- Nonnutritive sucking. --- Observation. --- Pellet. --- Performance. --- Restriction. --- Shelter. --- Stereotypic. --- Stereotypies. --- Stereotypy. --- Tethered sows. --- Time. --- Treatment. --- Voles clethrionomys-glareolus. --- Weaning. --- Weight. --- Well-being.

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Behaviour. --- Development. --- Exploration. --- Jumping. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Mice. --- Ontogeny. --- Stereotypies. --- Stereotypy. --- Weaning. --- Weight.

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In rats, exploratory activity and emotional reactivity towards novel stimuli reflect independent biological functions that are modulated differently by rearing experiences. Environmental enrichment is known to improve performance in exploratory tasks, while having inconsistent effects on emotionality. This study examined the effect of environmental enrichment on the behaviour of rats in two exploratory tasks. Male rats were reared under one of four conditions, differing in social and non-social complexity. At 9 weeks of age, exploration of a novel open field, and exploration of novel objects in the same open field following 24 h habituation, was assessed. Differences in social and non-social complexity of the rearing environment had inconsistent effects on exploration in the novel open field. In contrast, when rats were faced with novel objects in an otherwise familiar environment, exploration habituated faster with increasing stimulus complexity of the non-social environment. The social environment had no effect on this latter test. These findings indicate that environmental enrichment affects exploratory activity primarily through its effect on habituation to novelty. This effect depends on relative stimulus complexity of the rearing environment, but is independent of social factors. The present results further suggest that aversive tasks can obscure the expression of enrichment-dependent differences in habituation to novelty. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

2 inbred strains. --- Activity. --- Adult rats. --- Age. --- Behaviour. --- Brain. --- Emotional reactivity. --- Emotionality. --- Enrichment. --- Environment. --- Environmental enrichment,enriched experience,isolation-rearing,behaviour,emotionality,exploration,habituation,novelty,open field,rat. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Experience. --- Exploration. --- Expression. --- Field. --- Function. --- Habituation. --- Inhibition. --- Male rat. --- Male-rats. --- Male. --- Mice. --- Novelty. --- Object. --- Objects. --- Open field. --- Open-field behavior. --- Open-field. --- Performance. --- Prenatal stress. --- Rat. --- Rats. --- Reactivity. --- Rearing. --- Social deprivation. --- Social environment. --- Social-factors. --- Social. --- Stimuli. --- Stimulus. --- Task. --- Tasks. --- Test.