Main description:

A Researcher's Guide to Rodent Behavior: Experimental Designs, Methods and Protocols is a comprehensive guide to all forms of behavioral processes found in mice, rats, and other rodents used in behavioral and cognitive research. The book begins with discussions of the basic skills necessary for successful rodent behavior research, including experimental design, animal selection, building any necessary apparatus, ethical considerations, and interpretation of results. The book provides further useful guidance for researchers at all stages of their careers, including a detailed description of how to perform stereotaxic surgery on the rat or mouse brain, advice on how to non-appetitively motivate rodents, and information on how to calculate drug dosages for research animals.

Most significantly, Rodent Behavior contains 35 proven, clearly defined protocols to aid readers in their research, making it one of the few books available that provides a collection of such protocols in a single publication. The cognitive, motor, sensory, affective, and species-typical protocols are profusely illustrated with full-color photographs from the author's own research, to help readers more fully understand the studies and methods discussed in the text and provide further instruction on the ideal ways to re-create research projects themselves.

Written by a renowned expert with more than forty years of experience in the laboratory performing behavioral testing on manifold rodent species, Rodent Behavior is crafted in an engaging, accessible style that makes the book the ideal guide not only for seasoned behavior researchers but also students, early-career researchers, and established scientists from other disciplines who are new to the study of animal behavior. The book draws on the author's own research experiences and passion for the animals he works with to provide a guide to animal behavior testing that is particularly concerned with paradigms that minimize animal suffering and emphasize rodents' welfare. Rodent Behavior is sure to be an indispensable reference for anyone engaged in behavior research involving any rodent species available to investigators.

Contents:

1. Why Use Animals?
2. Laboratory Animals: Brief History, Choosing the Best Animal for the Job
3. Making Apparatus
4. Dementia and Other Illnesses
5. The Hippocampus in Man and Animals
6. Planning
7. Statistical Analysis
8. Motor Protocols
9. Sensory Protocols
10. Species-Typical Protocols
11. Cognitive Protocols
12. Affective Protocols
13. Stereotaxic Techniques