The do’s and don’ts in behavioral testing: improve your open field test
Scientists have been performing open field tests for quite some time now. Over the years it has become one of the most popular tests in rodent behavioral research. So what’s not to love?
Why wolves cry out for their friends
Why do wolves howl? From research, movies, and even television series, we learn that wolves cry out to each other to facilitate the reassembling of a pack when members have strayed.
Why rats help other rats
As humans, we help each other because it is the right thing to do. We help our friends and our family. And of course we help strangers as well. Right?
Why social pigs do better
If you want to get on in life, is it better to make friends, or should you trample down the competition? Maybe we can learn something from animals…
How Automatic Rat Behavior Recognition was developed
If you are familiar with neurobehavioral research in any way, you will know that variables like velocity and distance moved are important parameters in a lot of animal behavioral experiments.
How environmental enrichment reduces the effects of stroke
Some research requires animals to be studied in groups. For this it is very useful to have video tracking software that can automatically track the behavior of multiple animals simultaneously.
Determining the effect of social hierarchy on foraging in coyotes
Whether it’s an older sibling taking the last piece of cake from their younger sibling or a dominant coyote shoving a subordinate out of the way so it can eat the food, nature has its hierarchies.
Connects some dots - cognitive impairment and cranial radiation
On a yearly basis, an estimated 20.000 individuals are diagnosed with primary brain tumors in the United States alone. About ten times that number of patients will receive treatment for primary or metastatic brain cancer.
How to get reliable results on object recognition using video tracking
In the beginning of this year I wrote a post about the Morris water maze test, a popular and well-validated paradigm to study learning and memory in rats and mice.
A story of dogs and dolls
When finding the right dog for yourself, you probably won’t choose an aggressive one, will you? You don’t want it to attack your friends, kids, or other dogs. You could try using a temperament test, but how reliable are they?