'Happy' mice skew results

[hedgetrimmer]

Quality of Life ... Baby!!!

I went through looking for some good news and this is what I came up with...

~SNIP~

Mice are used to develop medical treatments

By BBC News Online's Ania Lichtarowicz
Wednesday, 6 March, 2002, 21:35 GMT

..."Different animals will need different improvements - for instance, mice will need nesting places, while guinea pigs will require hiding boxes like tubes or pipes.

But by improving living conditions, scientists are inducing changes in animals' behaviour. Dr Emma Hockly, from King's College, London, UK, has been studying how an improved environment affects behaviour in mice that carry a gene for Huntington's disease.

"A very low level of enrichment - for instance, even just adding a tube to let mice run through - delayed the visible onset of the disease," she told BBC News Online.

This, reports New Scientist magazine, presents a problem for scientists who might take 15 years to develop a drug. The animals used in their latest research work are behaving differently to those used in the initial experiments."...

... more ...

link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1858368.stm

[Nihil]

1. Thanks for that!

This ties back to the "will to live" effect in humans.

Wonder if it will open any eyes with regard to experiments on animals?

Nihil