^_^
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/science/study-shows-that-mice-run-for-fun-not-just-for-lab-work.html?hpw&rref=health&_r=0
QuoteMice Run for Fun, Not Just Work, Research Shows
By JAMES GORMANMAY 20, 2014
If an exercise wheel sits in a forest, will mice run on it?
Every once in a while, science asks a simple question and gets a straightforward answer.
In this case, yes, they will. And not only mice, but also rats, shrews, frogs and slugs.
True, the frogs did not exactly run, and the slugs probably ended up on the wheel by accident, but the mice clearly enjoyed it. That, scientists said, means that wheel-running is not a neurotic behavior found only in caged mice.
They like the wheel.
Two researchers in the Netherlands did an experiment that it seems nobody had tried before. They placed exercise wheels outdoors in a yard and in an area of dunes, and monitored the wheels with motion detectors and automatic cameras.
They were inspired by questions from animal welfare committees at universities about whether mice were really enjoying wheel-running, an activity used in all sorts of studies, or were instead like bears pacing in a cage, stressed and neurotic. Would they run on a wheel if they were free?
Now there is no doubt. Mice came to the wheels like human beings to a health club holding a spring membership sale. They made the wheels spin. They hopped on, hopped off and hopped back on.
"When I saw the first mice, I was extremely happy," said Johanna H. Meijer at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. "I had to laugh about the results, but at the same time, I take it very seriously. It's funny, and it's important at the same time."
Dr. Meijer's day job is as a "brain electrophysiologist" studying biological rhythms in mice. She relished the chance to get out of the laboratory and study wild animals, and in a way that no one else had.
She said Konrad Lorenz, the great-grandfather of animal behavior studies, once mentioned in a letter that some of his caged rats had escaped and then returned to his garden to use running wheels placed there.
But, Dr. Meijer said, the Lorenz observation "was one sentence."
For the experiment, the wheels were enclosed so that small animals could come and go but so that larger animals could not knock them over. Dr. Meijer set up motion sensors and automatic video cameras. Several years and 12,000 snippets of video later, she and Yuri Robbers, also a Leiden researcher, reported the results. They were released online Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Gene D. Block, chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, was not involved with the paper but knows Dr. Meijer and had seen the wheel set up in her garden. He said the study made it clear that wheel-running is "some type of rewarding behavior" and "probably not driven by stress or anxiety."
Mice accounted for 88 percent of the wheel-running events, and spent one minute to 18 on the wheel. The other animals each accounted for less than 1 percent. Frogs, though there were very few, were seen to get on the wheel, get off and get back on.
Russell Foster, a circadian rhythm researcher at Oxford University, said he read the paper and sent it out to other scientists on behalf of the Proceedings and was delighted when peer reviews from other scientists were positive.
Marc Bekoff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado who is active in the animal welfare movement, said in an email that he thought the paper did show that wheel-running could be a "voluntary activity," but that mice in labs may be doing more of it because of the stress of confinement.
"Wild bears will often pace back and forth," he wrote, "but in captivity, the rate of doing it seems to be greatly heightened."
As to why the mice, frogs or perhaps even slugs run, or move, on the wheel, Dr. Meijer said she thought that "there is an intrinsic motivation for animals, or should I say organisms, to be active."
Huda Akil, co-director of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan, who has studied reward systems, said: "It's not a surprise. All you have to do is watch a bunch of little kids in a playground or a park. They run and run and run."
Dr. Akil said that in humans, running activates reward pathways in the brain, although she pointed out that there are innate differences in temperament in all sorts of animals, including humans. Rats that do not like to run can be bred. And plenty of people do all they can to avoid jogging, cycling and elliptical machines.
Presumably, the same is true of wild mice. While some were setting the wheel on fire with their exertions, others, out of camera range, may have been sprawled out on the mouse equivalent of a lounge chair, shaking their whiskers in dismay and disbelief.
If a wheel spins in a forrest will anyone hear
Get bent, Tim.
Quote from: derspiess on May 23, 2014, 11:17:47 AM
Get bent, Tim.
:huh: Do you have something against mice? Or are you against using them in labs?
i enjoyed it :)
Gotta love weird science. I would not have anticipated these results.
So what percentage of wild mice enjoy it? I mean you can find guys who want to have sex with guys, doesn't make gay sex humane.
next step, strap the wild mice in functional mri scanners to see if their little micey pleasure centers in their little micey brains light up
Quote from: grumbler on May 23, 2014, 08:34:01 PM
Gotta love weird science. I would not have anticipated these results.
I thought the results were so blindingly obvious that it was kind of pointless to actually bother to do any formal research into it.
Quote from: Viking on May 24, 2014, 05:06:21 AM
next step, strap the wild mice in functional mri scanners to see if their little micey pleasure centers in their little micey brains light up
better yet seed a field with thousands of wheels tied to generators. Free mouse power!
Quote from: dps on May 24, 2014, 11:56:05 AM
Quote from: grumbler on May 23, 2014, 08:34:01 PM
Gotta love weird science. I would not have anticipated these results.
I thought the results were so blindingly obvious that it was kind of pointless to actually bother to do any formal research into it.
It's doing the science of the blindingly obvious that brings about the biggest advances. Modern science allegedly started when Francis Bacon tested the blindingly obvious idea that "The blood of a goat will shatter a diamond." (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/17285-the-blood-of-a-goat-will-shatter-a-diamond)
Quote from: HVC on May 24, 2014, 11:57:23 AM
Quote from: Viking on May 24, 2014, 05:06:21 AM
next step, strap the wild mice in functional mri scanners to see if their little micey pleasure centers in their little micey brains light up
better yet seed a field with thousands of wheels tied to generators. Free mouse power!
It's not free, it's fueled by the crops they're eating. :contract:
It is unusual. You would think the mice would assume this is obviously a trap. It makes them fairly vulnerable to predator too
Quote from: grumbler on May 23, 2014, 08:34:01 PM
Gotta love weird science. I would not have anticipated these results.
I'm confused why you wouldn't anticipate these results. Lots of humans run for fun, and it is hard to find many human behaviors that don't have parallels in animals. Also there appears to be clear cardiovascular benefits to running and biological processes to make it rewarding.
You typically don't see animals running laps in the wild.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 24, 2014, 10:10:59 PM
You typically don't see animals running laps in the wild.
There typically aren't tracks to run laps in the wild either.
Quote from: alfred russel on May 24, 2014, 08:46:01 PM
I'm confused why you wouldn't anticipate these results. Lots of humans run for fun, and it is hard to find many human behaviors that don't have parallels in animals. Also there appears to be clear cardiovascular benefits to running and biological processes to make it rewarding.
I am confused by what you mean when you say "it is hard to find many human behaviors that don't have parallels in animals." Humans dress in clothing, but for decoration and for protection from the weather. What animal dresses in clothing? What animals employ money, or cook their food, or post on the internet? There are a host of human activities with no animal parallels.
I wouldn't expect mice to climb into wheels in the woods and run for no gain, because it is counter-survival. It expends energy which the critter is going to have to risk its life to regenerate. It places the critters in the open, where their protective coloration and behaviors do them no good. This specific behavior cannot be instinctual, because the wheel is artificial. So, the mice must be willing to court death in order to run unimpeded by terrain or obstacles. That surprises me, given how timid mice normally are.
Quote from: grumbler on May 25, 2014, 08:36:41 AM
I am confused by what you mean when you say "it is hard to find many human behaviors that don't have parallels in animals." Humans dress in clothing, but for decoration and for protection from the weather. What animal dresses in clothing? What animals employ money, or cook their food, or post on the internet? There are a host of human activities with no animal parallels.
Dressing in clothes has a parallel, for example hermit crabs. Primates have been shown to use various objects as mediums of exchange.
Your last two examples are concerning using technology. Of course there are many technologies that humans have that other animals do not. I don't know of any non human animals that cook food, as humans are the only species that has the technology of fire, but some take steps to prepare it by doing things such as washing. Likewise, humans are the only species that uses the internet, but the underlying activity, communication and learning, has many parallels.
QuoteI wouldn't expect mice to climb into wheels in the woods and run for no gain, because it is counter-survival. It expends energy which the critter is going to have to risk its life to regenerate. It places the critters in the open, where their protective coloration and behaviors do them no good. This specific behavior cannot be instinctual, because the wheel is artificial. So, the mice must be willing to court death in order to run unimpeded by terrain or obstacles. That surprises me, given how timid mice normally are.
It is counter to one aspect of survival. Another aspect of survival is that many mammals seem to have designs that require a good bit of physical activity to be in top condition. Running is a good example of an activity that has both a cost (energy) and a payoff (better health). Running without a wheel generally means you have to cover a bunch of territory--which exposes you to predators. A wheel keeps you contained in one place.
My thought was that we already knew that hamsters runs for fun. Since mice and hamsters are both rodents (and in the same family IIRC), I figured it highly likely that mice would also do so, and would have been quite surprised to learn otherwise.
Bit gerbils don't like wheels
Quote from: Tyr on May 26, 2014, 06:25:06 PM
Bit gerbils don't like wheels
I wouldn't know, I've never bit a gerbil.
You know, they make little irradiators specifically for rodents. They're like little microwaves with no windows. 30 seconds and they're done.
Quote from: dps on May 26, 2014, 06:20:56 PM
My thought was that we already knew that hamsters runs for fun. Since mice and hamsters are both rodents (and in the same family IIRC), I figured it highly likely that mice would also do so, and would have been quite surprised to learn otherwise.
I always thought hamsters ran in the wheel because they had no other choice. I'm surprised that the mice prefer the wheel to just running around on their own, not that mice run around a lot.