DOI: 10.5061/dryad.s437221
title: Data from: Towards large scale automated cage monitoring – Diurnal rhythm and impact of interventions on in-cage activity of C57BL/6J mice recorded 24/7 with a non-disrupting capacitive-based technique

description: Abstract Background and aims Automated recording of laboratory animal’s
 home cage behavior is receiving increasing attention since such
 non-intruding surveillance will aid in the unbiased understanding of the
 normal animal cage behavior potentially improving animal experimental
 reproducibility. Material and methods Here we investigate activity of
 group held (5 mice/cage) female C57BL/6J mice (mus musculus) housed in
 standard Individually Ventilated Cages (IVC cages) across three
 test-sites: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Rome, Italy), The Jackson
 Laboratory (Bar Harbor, USA) and Karolinska Insititutet (Stockholm,
 Sweden). Additionally, comparison of female and male C57BL/6J mice was
 done at KI. Activity was recorded using a capacitive-based sensor placed
 non-intrusively on the cage rack under the home cage collecting activity
 data every 250 msec, 24/7. The data collection was analyzed using
 non-parametric rank-based analysis of variance (nparLD) for longitudinal
 data comparing sites, weekdays and sex. Results The system detected an
 increase in activity preceding and peaking around lights-on followed by a
 decrease to a rest pattern. At lights off, activity increased
 substantially displaying a distinct temporal variation across this period.
 We also documented impact on mouse activity that standard animal handling
 procedures have, e.g. cage-changes, and show that even simple procedures
 are stressors impacting in-cage activity. These key observations
 replicated across the three test-sites, however, it is also clear that,
 apparently minor local environmental differences generate significant
 behavioral variances between the sites and within sites across weeks.
 Comparison of gender revealed differences in activity in the response to
 cage-change lasting for days in male but not female mice; and apparently
 also impacting the response to other events such as lights-on in males.
 Females but not males showed a larger tendency for week-to-week variance
 in activity possibly reflecting estrous cycling. Conclusions These data
 demonstrate that real-time home cage monitoring is scalable and run in
 real time, providing complementary information for animal welfare
 measures, experimental design and phenotype characterization.
description: night_and_day_activity_cage_change_III-Weeklyraw data in csvnight_and_day_activity_SOD_control_group_CNRraw data in CSVnight_and_day_activity_SOD_control_group_JAXraw data in CSVnight_and_day_activity_SOD_control_group_KIraw data in csvresponse_2_bedding_change_cage_change_III-Weeklyraw data in csvresponse_2_bedding_change_SOD_control_group_CNRraw data in csvresponse_2_bedding_change_SOD_control_group_JAXraw data in csvresponse_2_bedding_change_SOD_control_group_KIraw data in csvresponse_2_lights_off_cage_change_III-Weeklyraw data in csvresponse_2_lights_off_SOD_control_group_CNRraw data csvresponse_2_lights_off_SOD_control_group_JAXraw data in csvresponse_2_lights_off_SOD_control_group_KIraw data in csvresponse_2_lights_on_SOD_control_group_CNRraw data in csvresponse_2_lights_on_SOD_control_group_JAXraw data in csvresponse_2_lights_on_SOD_control_group_KIraw data in csv