Effects of Enrichment on Behavioral Aspects of hTau Mice Modeling Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

This thesis investigated the effects of repeated exposure to a nesting task and different forms of enrichment on Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-modeling mice. Using hTauexpressing AD mice from strain rTg4510, the nesting study examined if continual exposure to a nestlet could prevent the decay in nesting ability over time. Alternatively, the aggression study explored the efficacy of cardboard tubes and nestlets in attenuating aggression in the noncarrier/noncarrier mice from strain rTg4510. Behavioral assays and survival analyses were conducted to assess nesting ability and aggression levels, respectively. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed no statistically significant effect of treatment in the nesting study but there was a significant effect of time; Chisquares revealed aggression levels varied across the aggression intervention groups with some significant effects of, and driven by, sex. Implications for animal welfare and future research are discussed, highlighting the need for further investigation into enrichment protocols and their behavioral impacts on laboratory animals.