• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.1381-1386
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• 2018

Animal experiments are essential to the study of animal nutrition. Because of the large variations among individual animals and ethical and economic constraints, experimental designs and statistical analyses are particularly important in animal experiments. To increase the scientific validity of the results and maximize the knowledge gained from animal experiments, each experiment should be appropriately designed, and the observations need to be correctly analyzed and transparently reported. There are many experimental designs and statistical methods. This editorial does not aim to review and present particular experimental designs and statistical methods. Instead, we discuss some essential elements when designing an animal experiment and conducting statistical analyses in animal nutritional studies and provide guidelines for submitting a manuscript to the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences for consideration for publication.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.75-81
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• 2018

Animal experiments have been widely conducted in the life sciences for more than a century, and have long been a subject of ethical and societal controversy due to the deliberate infliction of harm upon sentient animals. However, the harmful use of animals may also negatively impact the mental health of researchers themselves. We sought to evaluate the anxiety level of researchers engaged in animal use to analyse the mental stress from animal testing. The State Anxiety Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to evaluate how researchers feel when they conduct animal, as opposed to non-animal, based experiments (95 non-animal and 98 animal testing researchers). The Trait Anxiety Scale of STAI was employed to measure proneness to anxiety, namely the base trait of the researchers. Additionally, the information on sex, age, education, income, and total working periods was collected. While the Trait Anxiety scores were comparable ($41.5{\pm}10.9$ versus $42.9{\pm}10.1$, p = 0.3682, t-test), the State Anxiety scores were statistically significantly higher for animal users than non-animal users ($45.1{\pm}10.7$ versus $41.3{\pm}9.4$, p = 0.011). This trend was consistent for both male and female. Notably, younger animal testers (${\leq}30$ years of age) with less work experience (${\leq}2$ years) and lower income level (${\leq}27,000$ USD) exhibited higher anxiety scores, whereas these factors did not affect the anxiety level of non-animal users. The present study demonstrated that participation in animal experiments can negatively impact the mental health of researchers.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.64 no.5
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• pp.911-921
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• 2022

Maximum residue limits (MRL) for pesticides in feed have been set to protect public health and produce safe livestock products. In vivo experiments to establish MRL are essential, as livestock are commonly used to obtain reliable in vivo quantitative information. Here, we aimed to evaluate whether small laboratory animals can replace or reduce monogastric livestock in experiments to quantify pesticide residues in vivo after oral consumption through feed. First, 24 pigs and rats were randomly assigned to four groups and fed 0, 3, 9, or 30 mg/kg of sulfoxaflor. After four weeks, serum, muscle, fat, liver, kidney, and small intestine samples were collected, and sulfoxaflor residues were analyzed using liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry. Sulfoxaflor residues in pig tissues were significantly correlated with those in rat tissues. Model equations were formulated based on the residual sulfoxaflor amount in pig and rat tissues. The calculated and measured sulfoxaflor residues in pigs and rats showed more than 90% similarity. Sulfoxaflor did not affect body weight gain, feed intake, or the feed conversion ratio. Therefore, we concluded that pesticide residue quantification in vivo to establish MRL could be performed using small laboratory animals instead of livestock animals. This would contribute to obtaining in vivo pesticide residue information and reducing large-scale livestock animal experiments.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.13-16
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• 2022

The use of animals heavily impacts the mental health of researchers performing the animal experiments. The animal researchers need to take care of animals but also give pain and sacrifice them at the same time. This circumstance can cause a variety of mental stress to the researchers. The stress generated in the laboratory would not only negatively affect the management of animals and the research results, but also would harm the researchers' physical and mental health. Because the feeling of sympathy for animals is a natural feature of humanity, psychological stress following a laboratory animal's death after use is not surprising. It is necessary to revise the relevant laws based on understanding the difficulties of animal researchers in society and to develop related educational programs at the national level to help the psychology and emotions of researchers who conduct animal experiments.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.1708-1718
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• 2021

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the magnetic resonance (MR) characteristics and applicability of new, uniform, extremely small iron-based nanoparticles (ESIONs) with 3-4-nm iron cores using contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). Materials and Methods: Seven types of ESIONs were used in phantom and animal experiments with 1.5T, 3T, and 4.7T scanners. The MR characteristics of the ESIONs were evaluated via phantom experiments. With the ESIONs selected by the phantom experiments, animal experiments were performed on eight rabbits. In the animal experiments, the in vivo kinetics and enhancement effect of the ESIONs were evaluated using half-diluted and non-diluted ESIONs. The between-group differences were assessed using a linear mixed model. A commercially available gadolinium-based contrast agent (GBCA) was used as a control. Results: All ESIONs showed a good T1 shortening effect and were applicable for MRA at 1.5T and 3T. The relaxivity ratio of the ESIONs increased with increasing magnetic field strength. In the animal experiments, the ESIONs showed peak signal intensity on the first-pass images and persistent vascular enhancement until 90 minutes. On the 1-week follow-up images, the ESIONs were nearly washed out from the vascular structures and organs. The peak signal intensity on the first-pass images showed no significant difference between the non-diluted ESIONs with 3-mm iron cores and GBCA (p = 1.000). On the 10-minutes post-contrast images, the non-diluted ESIONs showed a significantly higher signal intensity than did the GBCA (p < 0.001). Conclusion: In the phantom experiments, the ESIONs with 3-4-nm iron oxide cores showed a good T1 shortening effect at 1.5T and 3T. In the animal experiments, the ESIONs with 3-nm iron cores showed comparable enhancement on the first-pass images and superior enhancement effect on the delayed images compared to the commercially available GBCA at 3T.

• Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.52-58
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• 2015

Animal shoulder models are important in the investigation of the natural history of various pathologic conditions and for evaluation of the effectiveness of different treatments and biomaterials. The characteristics of animal shoulder models that may be used for rotator cuff related experiments are different with regard to the anatomy, behavioral pattern, advantages and disadvantages in application to each other. The lower primates and all the non-primate species, except the tree kangaroo, were neither functional overhead nor had a true rotator cuff. Utilizing more advanced primates, or perhaps even the tree kangaroo would be ideal and the most relevant to man as they possess a true rotator cuff. However, ethical concerns, costs, and many limitations in obtaining primates generally preclude the use of these animals for such research. Finally we should consider the differences in comparative anatomy and behavioral pattern of each animal model during performance or interpretation of rotator cuff experiments.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.86-92
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• 2022

Utilization of small robots in psychology and biology provides a new breakthrough in understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of various animal behavior. The expansion of robot use in animal research is partly due to increased availability of economically plausible mobile robots and also due to the current shift in animal research toward more ecologically valid experiments. Ground-breaking experimental findings are expected when the behavioral variables are manipulated in more natural situations. In addition, the results from laboratory could be generalized more easily with added ecological validity. The current paper attempts to review a wide range of applications of animal robots used to study animal behavior and to highlight major advantages and limitations. In particular, this review focuses more on the psychological impact of animal robots than engineering details about their structure and operation. Finally, this review will provide some practical considerations when employing robots in animal experiments.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.723-731
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• 1992

Two similar experiments were designed to evaluate the interaction of dietary CP and ME levels on the production performance parameters at the age between 155 and 300 days in Starcross layers. In both experiments, the feed intake and mortality decreased but the egg weight, body weight gain and feed conversion efficiency increased as the dietary CP and ME levels increased. The CP intake was highest CP and lowest ME levels. With the increasing CP and decreasing ME levels, the ME intake decreased significantly (Experiments 1 & 2). The $CP{\times}ME$ interactions were significant only on mean egg weight and egg production in Experiment 2. In both the experiments, the CP levels were positively correlated with CP intake, egg weight, body weight gain and egg production and negative correlation with feed intake, mortality percentage and ME intake. The ME levels showed negative correlation with feed intake, protein intake, mortality percentages and positive correlation with all other parameters in both experiments. The highest values were noted for all the parameters (except mortality percentages) in Experiment 1 than that recorded in Experiment 2.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.145-159
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• 2021

Purpose: A statistical similarity evaluation to compare pharmacokinetics(PK) profile data between nonclinical and clinical experiments has become a significant issue on many drug development processes. This study proposes a new similarity index by considering important parameters, such as the area under the curve(AUC) and the time-series profile of various PK data. Methods: In this study, a new profile similarity index(PSI) by using the concept of a process capability index(Cp) is proposed in order to investigate the most similar animal PK profile compared to the target(i.e., Human PK profile). The proposed PSI can be calculated geometric and arithmetic means of all short term similarity indices at all time points on time-series both animal and human PK data. Designed simulation approaches are demonstrated for a verification purpose. Results: Two different simulation studies are conducted by considering three variances(i.e., small, medium, and large variances) as well as three different characteristic types(smaller the better, larger the better, nominal the best). By using the proposed PSI, the most similar animal PK profile compare to the target human PK profile can be obtained in the simulation studies. In addition, a case study represents differentiated results compare to existing simple statistical analysis methods(i.e., root mean squared error and quality loss). Conclusion: The proposed PSI can effectively estimate the level of similarity between animal, human PK profiles. By using these PSI results, we can reduce the number of animal experiments because we only focus on the significant animal representing a high PSI value.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.609-624
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• 2022

Tenebrio molitor larvae, as known as edible insects, has advantages of being rich in protein, and has been recognized as a suitable alternate protein source for broiler and pig feed. Moreover, given their ability to biodegrade polystyrene, a major pollutant, Tenebrio molitor larvae has been proposed as an innovative solution to environmental problems. In the present study, we investigated the toxicity of Tenebrio molitor larvae powder (TMlp) ingested with expanded-polystyrene (W/ eps) through in vitro and in vivo experiments. The objective of this study was to determine whether TMlp W/ eps can be applied as livestock alternative protein source. For in vitro experiments, cytotoxicity test was performed to investigate the effects of TMlp-extract on the viability of estrogen-dependent MCF-7 cells. The possibility of estrogen response was investigated in two groups: Expanded-polystyrene-fed (W/ eps) TMlp group and without expanded-polystyrene-fed (W/o eps) TMlp group. For in vivo experiments, The male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided based on the dosage of TMlp administered and oral administration was performed to every day for 5 weeks. A toxicological assessments were performed, which included clinical signs, food consumption, body and organ weights, hematology, serum chemistry, and hematoxylin and eosin staining of liver and kidney. There were no specific adverse effect of TMlp W/ eps-related findings under the experimental conditions of this study, but further studies on both sexes and animal species differences should be investigated. In conclusion, TMlp W/ eps was considered non-toxic and observed to be applicable as an alternative protein source for livestock feed.