Assessment of Anxiety and Cerebral Morfology of Rabbits in Enriched Cages

• Grant number: 12/17157-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2012
• End date: June 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Ecology of Domestic Animals and Ethology
• Principal Investigator: Ana Silvia Alves Meira Tavares Moura
• Grantee: Thais Freitas Marques Bozicovich
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The objective is to evaluate the anxiety of the animals against two types of enrichment: environmental and  social. Also assess brain morphology of a sample of these animals with and without enrichment. Will be used 56 male rabbits weaned until reaching 77 days. The animals will be distributed in a completely randomized design with a factorial arrangement of 2 x 2 (with or without environmental enrichment and social enrichment with or without), with 4 replicates. Half of all enriched cages used will be a piece of eucalyptus. The animals subjected to social enrichment will be housed in 8 collective cages, six per cage. The animals deprived of social contact will be housed in individual cages 8. The elevated plus maze is used for observation of the behavior of locomotion and anxiety-related (immobilization). It will also be evaluated animal performance. After the maze test, will be chosen at random one animal of each repetitions, totaling 16 animals that will be used for the morphological analysis of the brain. It will be evaluated neuronal morphology of layers III and V of parietal cortex and frontal cortex. For morphological analysis, sections of each of the sections will be processed and assembled to study the cytoarchitecture. The data obtained by observing the behavior of animals are compared using a series of two-way repeated measures (RM) analysis of variance (ANOVA). Already the results of morphological analysis are compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

BOZICOVICH, Thais Freitas Marques. Efeito do enriquecimento ambiental sobre a ansiedade e morfologia neuronal de coelhos (Oryctolagus cuniculus). 2015. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia. Botucatu Botucatu.