Role of Cotton as Nesting Material in Female Mice as a Behavioral Indicator for Pup’s Health

Abstract

Background: Nesting is an essential neuropsychological motor behavior that helps conserve heat for reproduction and shelter building to protect offspring from environmental change. Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate how putting cotton in the cage influenced the nesting behavior of female mice. Objective: The objective of the present work is to validate and establish the role of cotton as nesting material. Materials and Methods: The female mice (n=25), after monogamous mating, were kept individually in a separate cage for the entire gestation period to prepare for delivery. Sterile cotton was kept inside the cage after immediate delivery to observe the nesting and burrowing neuropsychological behaviour. The quality of the resulting nest was scored by a definitive 5-point nest scoring scale as 0 for no nest, 1 for the flat nest, and 2 onwards for nests covering the offspring by mice. Furthermore, the neurobehavioral maternal health was also evaluated in terms of grooming, rearing activity, mean time spent by the dam, frequency of nurturing and mean time spent on the nest for each mouse for 10min daily for 15 days. Results: Based on scoring, out of 25 female mice, 16 were found to show a maximum score of 5, as they build a nest with which they reveal better neuropsychological nurturing behavior as compared to the remaining 4 with a score of 4 to protect their offspring from environmental change to maintain a homeostatic microenvironment. Conclusion: Cotton was considered a suitable choice as nest-building material, which was better utilized by the swiss albino mice. It also improves nesting and burrowing performance, observed in the home cage, proving to be a valuable and easy-to-use tool for assessing motor impairment due to brain damage as well as neurobehavioral changes.