Physiological and behavioural signs of pain and wellbeing in mice

• Applicant: Dr. Paulin Jirkof
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321137804

A reason for suffering in experimental animals is pain, a subjective, negative affective state. In this project we will evaluate methods of pain and welfare assessment in mice for sensitivity, robustness, reproducibility and transferability. Therefore we will apply methods ranging from scoring of clinical symptoms to recently developed behavioral tests (e.g. burrowing test) as well as new monitoring tools (e.g. infrared thermography) and new approaches considering the affective state of the animal (e.g. cognitive bias test) in our well-established laparotomy model and in other models (e.g. organ transplantation). We will contribute to refinement by analyzing measures to reduce pain and improve recovery like optimized analgesia protocols, local anesthetics, post-surgical warming and experimental housing conditions. Our project will result in easy-to-use, standardized tools to judge severity like score sheets (designed in collaboration within the DFG research group) and methods to minimize severity in animal experimentation.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2591: Severity assessment in animal-based research
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Margarete Arras