The vest-collar as a rodent collar to prevent licking and scratching during experiments
- Authors
- Jang, Yura; Park, Ye Eun; Yun, Cheol-Won; Kim, Dae-Hyun; Chung, Hesson
- Issue Date
- 8월-2016
- Publisher
- SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
- Keywords
- vest-collar; restraint collar; Elizabethan collar; laboratory animal; rodents; mice
- Citation
- LABORATORY ANIMALS, v.50, no.4, pp.296 - 304
- Indexed
- SCIE
SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- LABORATORY ANIMALS
- Volume
- 50
- Number
- 4
- Start Page
- 296
- End Page
- 304
- URI
- https://scholar.korea.ac.kr/handle/2021.sw.korea/87984
- DOI
- 10.1177/0023677215610971
- ISSN
- 0023-6772
- Abstract
- Various types of restraint collars have been used for research animals, and the Elizabethan collar (E-collar) is the most commonly used. However, animals can be choked by the E-collar or they tend to remove it; furthermore, repeated rubbing and scratching of the collar may chafe the neck. We developed a new restraint collar with a vest to overcome these limitations. The vest-collar (V-collar) can be worn similarly to a vest, in contrast to the E-collar, which is fixed around the neck. A cone-shaped collar is attached to the vest in the V-collar and is made of Eva foam to surround the chest softly, accompanied by a transparent polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film for visibility. To evaluate the performance of the V-collar, we conducted experiments with mice wearing the V-collar and the E-collar. Both groups showed normal weight gain and food intake. Glucose and stress hormone levels showed no significant differences, and no stress-associated leukocyte profiles were observed during the experiments. However, despite the short experimental duration, more than half of the mice in the E-collar group showed injury to the skin on the neck, with increased thickness of the epidermal and keratin layers. Moreover, inflammatory cell counts were higher in the E-collar group than in the V-collar group. In conclusion, the V-collar, in contrast to the E-collar, does not cause skin injuries in animals and is thus beneficial for animals and investigators. Investigators can effectively use the V-collar to enhance laboratory animal welfare.
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Collections - Graduate School > Department of Life Sciences > 1. Journal Articles
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