Module 07 - Environmental Enrichment

Commentary

When such tests are done with groups of volunteers, every possible result occurs.  Either both tests show the wild mouse to be better off or both show the laboratory mouse to be better off.  Sometimes one test shows the wild mouse to be better off and the other the laboratory mouse to be better off.  Occasionally the results show that the mice have equivalent levels of well-being. 

A closer examination of the results shows that wild mice are better off in some respects than laboratory mice and worse off in others. For example, the environment of the wild mouse is much more varied but the availability of good quality food is less than for the laboratory mouse.  The difference in final scores may be just a reflection of how much better or worse a particular parameter seems to be to us.  So these tests are highly subjective; we may be displaying our anthropomorphic views on the lives of laboratory or wild mice or we may have been influenced by some pre-existing knowledge about them.  Many people are surprised by their results.  There is often an admission that even though the laboratory mouse came out as better off in the test, that maybe the wild mouse was better off, at least for the shorter life they live.

This should make us wonder how the mice view the importance of various aspects of their daily life.  In the tests, we gave each parameter the same weight.  But maybe a complex environment is worth much more than the quality of water.  Maybe living a life with all its varied ups and downs for three hundred days is much better than an uneventful life of seven hundred days.

For the purpose of this module, these tests introduce a number of different ideas with regard to environmental enrichment for laboratory animals.  In particular, if we look at those categories in each test where the laboratory mouse was less well off than the wild mouse, we realize that we have room for improvement.  Admittedly, the tests are inaccurate and we may have overemphasized or underestimated the extent of problems, but the fact that we think about them is important both to the animals and to the studies they are used in.