Standard laboratory cages limit rodents from expressing natural behaviour, which can induce stress and negatively impact both their welfare and the reliability of experimental data. Routine manual welfare inspections are labor-intensive, susceptible to human error, and often disrupt animals during rest periods.
Efforts to implement automated monitoring face challenges due to the confined cage environment, and daytime observations frequently overlook symptoms that appear at night. Consequently, adverse effects of new treatments may be identified too late, or missed entirely.
Enhancing welfare and data
The ELAN project aims to achieve a suite of improvements that collectively enhance both animal welfare and research efficiency. It seeks to reduce the time and financial resources currently devoted to daily welfare monitoring and the identification of clinical symptoms, while also lowering the risk of such symptoms or welfare issues being overlooked. By enabling more accurate and continuous observation, ELAN is expected to improve overall animal welfare, enhance the quality and reliability of experimental data, and contribute to a reduction in the number of animals required for research.
In doing so, ELAN directly supports the principles of the Three Rs: Replacement, Reduction and Refinement, thereby benefiting not only the animals themselves, but also researchers, ethics committees, animal care staff, biotechnical personnel, animal welfare bodies, and society at large.
