Testing Animal Anxiety in Rats: Effects of Open Arm Ledges and Closed Arm Wall Transparency in Elevated Plus Maze Test.

The elevated plus maze test is a behavioral test for assessing animal anxiety in rodents. Although this test is widely applied in the field of behavioral science, conflicting outcomes are often provided from different laboratories. To identify reasons for the different outcomes, we previously focused on arm features, which differ between laboratories, most notably the presence/absence of ledges at the sides of open arms and the transparency/opaqueness of closed arm walls. In a previous report, we used a custom designed container to compare rat behavior on different combinations of open and closed arm designs under otherwise identical experimental conditions, and showed that differences in arm features interfere with experimental outcomes. In brief, open arm ledges significantly increased anxiety-like behavior in rats, while transparent arms may also have decreased this behavior. Furthermore, we verified a higher detection sensitivity of the effect of an anxiolytic drug in a combination of no-ledged open arm + opaque walled closed arm compared with a combination of ledged open arm + transparent walled closed arm. In this report, we introduce our protocol for the elevated plus maze test, together with discussion of the key results from the previous report and our experimental experience. We believe this report will provide useful information for researchers who have employed or who plan to use the elevated plus maze in their studies.

Swine herds achieve high performance by culling low lifetime efficiency sows in early parity.

Sow lifetime performance and by-parity performance were analyzed using a 3 by 3 factorial design, comprising 3 herd productivity groups and 3 sow efficiency groups. Data was obtained from 101 Japanese herds, totaling 173,526 parity records of 34,929 sows, for the years 2001 to 2006. Sows were categorized into 3 groups based on the lower and upper 25th percentiles of the annualized lifetime pigs born alive: low lifetime efficiency sows (LE sows), intermediate lifetime efficiency sows or high lifetime efficiency sows. Herds were grouped on the basis of the upper and lower 25th percentiles of pigs weaned per mated female per year, averaged over 6 years: high-, intermediate- or low-performing herds. Mixed-effects models were used for comparisons. LE sows in high-performing herds had 57.8 fewer lifetime nonproductive days and 0.5 earlier parity at removal than those in low-performing herds (P<0.05). The number of pigs born alive of LE sows continuously decreased from parity 1 to 5, whereas those of high lifetime efficiency sows gradually increased from parity 1 to 4 before decreasing up to parity ≥ 6 (P<0.05). In conclusion, the LE sows have a performance pattern of decreasing number of pigs born alive across parity. The present study also indicates that high-performing herds culled potential LE sows earlier than the other herds.