How Animal Behavioral Management and Environmental Enrichment Enhances Preclinical Research Performance

Research results may be inadvertently influenced by exaggerated physiologic responses in unplanned research environments. Furthermore, technical, veterinary and research personnel are at risk when an animal’s behavior imposes a barrier to their optimal performance during common research, veterinary, and husbandry procedures. However, investing in behavioral management and enhancing the lives of research animals by applying environmental enrichment before and during a research experiment has proven to minimize physiologic variation in an animal population and can be a more efficient way to perform research.

A high quality research animal is a healthy and well-adapted animal. Appropriate socialization, acclimation and conditioning of research animals has been shown to improve quality of scientific data. Behavioral management through social, occupational/cognitive, sensory and structural environmental enrichment plays an essential role in achieving these goals. Reviewing the species-specific enhancements that are afforded to our research animals will provide a thorough overview of how we work towards achieving a physiologically, psychologically, and nutritionally stable animal that makes for a good research subject. However, these interventions have to be implemented throughout the research cycle.

The animal supplier, an animal care program which includes the husbandry, veterinary and behavioral management program, researcher and research design all play a critical role in making this possible. In this webinar, featured speakers will explore how each intervention throughout the research cycle results in time efficiency, cost savings, improved safety and ultimately enhanced research performance.

Topics will include:

• An introduction to the overarching role of behavioral management in research
• The definition of behavioral management
• How behavioral management supports research from the beginning
• How behavioral management enhances the lives of research animals
• How behavioral management enhances research performance

Speaker

Jennifer Baszczak, BS, MS, RLAT, Behavioral Management Services Supervisor, Comparative Medicine, Lovelace Biomedical

Jennifer Baszczak, BS, MS, RLAT, serves as the Comparative Medicine Behavioral Management Services Supervisor. She completed a master’s degree in Animal Sciences with a concentration in Animal Behavior and Welfare under Dr. Temple Grandin at Colorado State University. She is responsible for oversight and implementation of Lovelace’s Behavioral Management Program. Jennifer has been an invited speaker at several conferences including the past three National AALAS meetings, to discuss her work with ferrets, dogs, and swine. She has 9 years of experience at Lovelace and more than 20 years of experience in animal science and behavior.

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