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An environmental enrichment model for mice

Nature Protocols volume 5, pages 1535–1539 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Environmental enrichment for animals is a combination of complex inanimate and social stimulation and generally consists of housing conditions that facilitate enhanced sensory, cognitive, motor and social stimulation relative to standard housing conditions. One of the most robust effects of environmental enrichment is the reduction of anxiety levels. However, the extreme variability in enrichment protocols may account for some of the inconsistencies in its effects and the variance among results reported by different laboratories. In this protocol, we describe a simple environmental enrichment strategy for the induction of a robust and replicable anxiolytic-like effect in mice. We provide detailed instructions on how to build an enrichment cage that is specially designed for easy manipulation, cleaning and observation by the experimenter. In addition, we describe the different enrichment items, their order in the cage, the frequency of renewal and their cleaning and sterilization procedures. The total length of the protocol is 6 weeks.

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Figure 1: EE cage design.
Figure 2: Picture of the EE cage.
Figure 3: Enrichment objects.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Pasmantirer and G. Perelman from the Weizmann Institute of Science Instrument Design Unit for the design of the EE cage and A. Inhorn from the Weizmann Institute of Science Precision Instrument and Engineering Workshop for the construction of the EE cage.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Yehezkel Sztainberg & Alon Chen

  2. Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Yehezkel Sztainberg

Authors
  1. Yehezkel Sztainberg
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  2. Alon Chen
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Contributions

Y.S. prepared and wrote the article. A.C. supervised and edited the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alon Chen.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Data

Detailed plans for the construction of an EE cage (PDF 2421 kb)

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Sztainberg, Y., Chen, A. An environmental enrichment model for mice. Nat Protoc 5, 1535–1539 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2010.114

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