DESENVOLVIMENTO DE UM PROTOCOLO PARA AVALIAÇÃO DE RESPOSTA DEFENSIVA ANTIPREDATÓRIA DE CAMUNDONGO SWISS EM AMBIENTE NATURAL

Abstract

The use of laboratory animals as experimental models is an old practice; however, in recent decades there has been growing concern about the welfare of these animals and the questioning of how laboratory conditions can influence the results of the studies. Thus, environmental enrichment efforts have sought ways to improve welfare and refine the results of the most diverse investigations. On the other hand, the lack of standardization in the practices of environmental enrichment hinders its replication and the evaluation of its influences on the studies. In this sense, the objective of this study was to propose a protocol for the evaluation of the antipredatory defensive response of Swiss mice in a semiatural environment. We start from the hypothesis that antipredatory responses presented in seminatal environments are closer to those shaped by the evolutionary history of the species (when compared to those exhibited in standard laboratory environments), since these offer a greater number of key stimuli for the decrease of factors that can stress the animals. Thus, proles of Swiss mice were distributed in four groups that were kept in standard environment for one day (AP 1D) and five days (AP 5D) and maintained in a semi-natural environment for the same periods (ASN 1D and ASN 5D). At the end of the periods, the animals were confronted with true and false snakes. Self-cleaning, freezing, lurking, avoidance, escape, interaction with snakes and exploitation of refuges (stones and branches) were evaluated. Overall, our results demonstrated that all groups were able to differentiate between true and false snakes and exhibit innate predatory defensive behaviors. However, animals in the ASN groups, especially those maintained for five days, expressed such behaviors with greater intensity, indicating that such environments may provide more sensitive results that depend on the innate behavioral display of the mice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to present a behavioral test protocol involving a seminatural environment, which can be used pharmacological or ecotoxicological studies related to fear, anxiety disorders and/or deficits of antipredatory defensive responses.