Cited by 67Animal Behavior and Welfare StudiesRegulation of Appetite and ObesityAdipokines, Inflammation, and Metabolic Diseases

Home alone: a systematic review and meta‐analysis on the effects of individual housing on body weight, food intake and visceral fat mass in rodents

Open access
Schipper, L., Harvey, L., van der Beek, E. M., van Dijk, G.·2018·Obesity Reviews

Abstract

Summary: Rats and mice are widely used to study environmental effects on psychological and metabolic health. Study designs differ widely and are often characterized by varying (social) housing conditions. In itself, housing has a profound influence on physiology and behaviour of rodents, affecting energy balance and sustainable metabolic health. However, evidence for potential long‐term consequences of individual versus social housing on body weight and metabolic phenotype is inconsistent. We conducted a systematic literature review and meta‐analyses assessing effects of individual versus social housing of rats and mice, living under well‐accepted laboratory conditions, on measures of metabolic health, including body weight, food intake and visceral adipose tissue mass. Seventy‐one studies were included in this review; 59 were included in the meta‐analysis. Whilst housing did not affect body weight, both food intake and visceral adipose tissue mass were significantly higher in individually compared with socially housed animals. A combination of emotional stress and lack of social thermoregulation likely contributed to these effects. Increased awareness of consequences and improved specifications of housing conditions are necessary to accurately evaluate efficacy of drugs, diets or other interventions on metabolic and other health outcomes because housing conditions are rarely considered as possible moderators of reported outcomes.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/obr.12663

Cites

182 of 182 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Part of this paper’s reference list could not be split into single entries.

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. Council NR. Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Ani- mals, 8th edition, 8th edn. National Academic Press: Washington D.C., 2011.
  2. Jones CA, Watson DJ, Fone KC. Animal models of schizophre- nia. Br J Pharmacol 2011; 164: 1162-1194.
  3. Gordon CJ, Becker P, Ali JS. Behavioral thermoregulatory re- sponses of single-and group-housed mice. Physiol Behav 1998; 65: 255-262.
  4. Nutrition NRCUSoLA. Nutrient Requirements of the Mouse. In: Overton JM (ed.). Nutrient Requirements of Laboratory Ani- mals: Fourth Revised Edition, 1995. National Academies Press: (US);: Washington D.C, 1995.
  5. Ali AM, Hakami FA. Comparative studies on the effect of Pro- zac drug and barely grains on the skeletal muscles of mice: behavioral and histological studies. J Appl Pharm Sci 2012; 2: 45-51.
  6. Collaboration TC. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Re- views of Interventions. John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2008.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Schipper, L., Harvey, L., van der Beek, E. M., & van Dijk, G.
Affiliations
  • University of Groningen (NL)
  • Nutricia Research Singapore
  • Nutricia Research Utrecht The Netherlands
  • Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), Neurobiology Cluster, Department Behavioural Neurosciences University of Groningen Groningen The Netherlands
Venue
Obesity Reviews
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2018-01-15
Volume
19
Issue
5
Pages
614-637
ISSN
  • 1467-7881 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-789X
OpenAlex
W2782964505
Cited by
67
References
182
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 1
FWCI
1.59
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Obesity Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Regulation of Appetite and Obesity
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Adipokines, Inflammation, and Metabolic Diseases
Keywords
individual housing, social housing, laboratory rodents, body weight, dietary intake, visceral adipose tissue, metabolic health, energy balance, emotional stress, social thermoregulation, rats, mice
MeSH terms
Animals, Behavior, Animal, Body Temperature Regulation, Body Weight, Disease Models, Animal, Eating, Housing, Social Environment, Stress, Psychological, Adiposity, Mice, Rats

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review