title: A technique for restraining rodents during hindlimb interventions.
abstract: Recently interest has grown in the skeletal effects of external electrophysical modalities. To introduce these modalities into the rodent hindlimb, restraining the animals is often necessary. This report describes a novel restraint device that was highly successful when used on 10 Sprague-Dawley rats for 20 min daily for 6 days each week over a period of 12 weeks. The restrained animals gained less weight than did 10 cage control animals, suggesting that animals experienced stress. However, this weight loss was significant (p < 0.05) only during the first six weeks, suggesting a degree of acclimatization. Restraint had no observable effect on measures of bone mineral content of the hindlimb. The restraint device we developed restrained animals without the need for anesthetics, enabling our device to be used in future studies investigating the skeletal effect of external electrophysical modalities on the rodent hindlimb.
authors.affiliation: School of Physiotherapy, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Warden
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Bennell
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: McMeeken
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Wark
mesh_terms: D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000379:methods*; D000827:Animal Welfare; D000818:Animals; D004594:Electrophysiology; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006614:Hindlimb; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012149:Restraint, Physical / Q000379:methods*