Unbridle biomedical research from the laboratory cage

2017/06/29 by Garet P. Lahvis · 1 citation
Veterinary · Psychology · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Animal testing and alternatives #Animal and Plant Science Education #Human-Animal Interaction Studies

paper · doi:10.7554/elife.27438

openalex publication_date 2017/06/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/27

Abstract

Many biomedical research studies use captive animals to model human health and disease. However, a surprising number of studies show that the biological systems of animals living in standard laboratory housing are abnormal. To make animal studies more relevant to human health, research animals should live in the wild or be able to roam free in captive environments that offer a natural range of both positive and negative experiences. Recent technological advances now allow us to study freely roaming animals and we should make use of them.

Citations

• The Value of Enrichment to Reintroduction Success
• A system for automatic recording of social behavior in a free-living wild house mouse population
• Conditioned place preference: what does it add to our preclinical understanding of drug reward?
• Untangling the neurobiology of coping styles in rodents: Towards neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in disease susceptibility

Cited by

• Model organism [wikipedia]

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