phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at o:2308 DOI 10.1186/s42826-023-00160-9 Effects of more natural housing conditions on the muscular and skeletal characteristics of female C57BL/6J mice Enrichment of home cages in laboratory experiments offers clear advantages, but has been criticized in some respects. First, there is a lack of definition, which makes methodological uniformity difficult. Second, there is concern that the enrichment of home cages may increase the variance of results in experiments. Here, the influence of more natural housing conditions on physiological parameters of female C57BL/6J mice was investigated from an animal welfare point of view. For this purpose, the animals were kept in three different housing conditions: conventional cage housing, enriched housing and the semi naturalistic environment. The focus was on musculoskeletal changes after long-term environmental enrichment.The housing conditions had a long-term effect on the body weight of the test animals. The more complex and natural the home cage, the heavier the animals. This was associated with increased adipose deposits in the animals. There were no significant changes in muscle and bone characteristics except for single clues (femur diameter, bone resorption marker CTX-1). Additionally, the animals in the semi naturalistic environment (SNE) were found to have the fewest bone anomalies. Housing in the SNE appears to have the least effect on stress hormone concentrations. The lowest oxygen uptake was observed in enriched cage housing.Despite increasing values, observed body weights were in the normal and strain-typical range. Overall, musculoskeletal parameters were slightly improved and age-related effects appear to have been attenuated. The variances in the results were not increased by more natural housing. This confirms the suitability of the applied housing conditions to ensure and increase animal welfare in laboratory experiments. eng Environmental Enrichment; Bone Mass; Seminaturalistic Environment; Alzheimers-Disease; Physical-Activity; Laboratory Mice; Metabolic-Rate; Fecal Samples; Weight-Gain; Muscle Mass 2023-11-14T09:39:57.552Z LOMv1.0 Author BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Mieske;Paul; FN:Paul Mieske X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1513-1946 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Diederich;Kai; FN:Kai Diederich END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Lewejohann;Lars; FN:Lars Lewejohann END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Preikschat;Juliane; FN:Juliane Preikschat END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Hobbiesiefken;Ute; FN:Ute Hobbiesiefken END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Palme;Rupert; FN:Rupert Palme X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9466-3662 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Brylka;Laura; FN:Laura Brylka END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Scheinpflug;Julia; FN:Julia Scheinpflug END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Yorgan;Timur Alexander; FN:Timur Alexander Yorgan END:VCARD https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/scheme https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/text Textdokument Text LOMv1.0 yes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 application/pdf 1239584 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:2308 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:2308/thumbnail LOMv1.0 discipline