Short communicationFamiliarity increases consistency in animal tests
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Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Pfizer/LASA Animal Welfare Research Fund and Central Science Laboratory. We are also grateful to Colin Hendrie, Martyn Pickersgill, Ian Inglis, and the five experimenters for their involvement, and three referees for their constructive comments.
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2021, Physiology and BehaviorCitation Excerpt :The experimenter has been widely acknowledged as an uncontrollable factor in animal experimentation [20] [96][98][99][100]. Factors such as sex [101], familiarity with the experimenter [102] and experimenter experience [96] may all affect behavioral traits. Inter-observer variability constitutes another form of experimenter-induced variation [96][103].
Beneficial effects of environmental enrichment on behavior, stress reactivity and synaptophysin/BDNF expression in hippocampus following early life stress
2018, International Journal of Developmental NeuroscienceCitation Excerpt :All animals were maintained on a 12:12 light/dark cycle (08:00 light/20:00 dark) and standard temperature (22 ± 2 °C), with food and water available ad libitum. Handling of the pups and behavioral testing were performed by the same personnel since familiarity with the experimenter increases consistency in animal testing (van Driel and Talling, 2005). Εxperimental procedures were conducted in accordance to the Institutional Animal Ethics EL 54 BIO 20.