Stage 2 Registered Report: Refinement of tickling protocols to improve positive animal welfare in laboratory rats
Applying 50 kHz USVs as a measure of positive affect, these results confirm that tickling induces positive affect in juvenile laboratory rats. We report the novel finding of sex differences in response to tickling. Females preferred tickling where the amount of pinning is minimised relative to males that showed no preference across tickling treatments. Levels of USVs suggest that females possibly found the applied treatments, including control conditions, more rewarding than males did.
Authors
- Sarah M. Brown (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2203-0721)
- Ignacio Viñuela-Fernández
- Jessica Martin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0294-8770)
- Cammy Beyts (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4729-2982)
- Emma Tivey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7924-315X)
- Simone Meddle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5629-1332)
- A.B. Lawrence (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2083-4243)
- Vincent Bombail (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3313-2854)
- Megan R. LaFollette (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0643-2210)
- Birte L. Nielsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1371-6329)
- Tayla J. Hammond (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4521-0928)
- Michael Mendl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5302-1871)
- Emma Robinson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1299-6541)
- Tianhao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3099-7855)
Institutions
- American Institute of Biological Sciences (US)
- Roslin Institute (GB)
- Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (GB)
- Scotland's Rural College (GB)
- At Bristol (GB)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Native American Cancer Research (US)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- F1000Research
- Published
- 2025-09-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.166417.2
- Primary Topic
- Animal testing and alternatives
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00