Even though recent studies show that improving conditions for lab animals creates unexpected consequences, including some potentially unfavorable to scientists and the lab animals themselves, one researcher cautions not to place too much emphasis on the variables caused by these attempted enrichments.

A research team from Oxford University found that mice carrying a gene with a form of Huntington's disease behaved differently depending on the environment in which they were kept. Those mice in the "enriched" environment—where they lived with nine other mice in a large cage equipped with a running wheel, toys, a tube and food on the ground—did much better than the mice in the standard cages.

As a result, the studies caution that scientists must be careful when comparing the findings from experiments that employ different living conditions. There's also an additional concern: Because the lab enrichments introduce another variable into test results, scientists may have to test more animals to ensure the outcome is statistically significant.

But Vera Baumans of the Karolinska Institute reminds the research community that many other factors also cause such variation, and that researchers should not overemphasize the problems of lab enrichments.

Source: NewScientist.com