Search

Timedomain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR)-based measurement of body composition of rodents is an effective method to quickly and repeatedly measure proportions of fat, lean, and fluid without anesthesia. TD-NMR provides a measure of free water in a living animal, termed %fluid, and is a measure of unbound water in the vascular and extracellular spaces. We hypothesized that injecting a bolus of fluid into the peritoneal cavity would lead to an abrupt increase in %fluid and the rate of clearance monitored with TD-NMR would provide a noninvasive assessment of the free water homeostasis in an awake rat. Several strains of laboratory rats were injected intraperitoneally with 10 ml/kg isotonic or hypertonic saline and %fluid was monitored repeatedly with a Bruker "Minispec" TD-NMR body composition system. Following isotonic saline, %fluid increased immediately by 0.5% followed by a recovery over ~6 h. Injecting hypertonic (3 times normal saline) resulted in a significantly greater rise in %fluid and longer recovery. Intraperitoneal and subcutaneous fluid injection led to similar rates of clearance. The Wistar-Kyoto rat strain displayed significantly slower recovery to fluid loads compared with Long- Evans and Sprague-Dawley strains. Rats exercised chronically showed significant increases in %fluid, but the rate of clearance of fluid was similar to that of sedentary animals. We conclude that this technique could be used to study vascular and extracellular volume homeostasis noninvasively in rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of the aging human population highlights the need for laboratory animal models to study the basic biologic processes of aging and susceptibility to disease, drugs, and environmental pollutants. Methods are needed to evaluate the health of aging animals over time, particularly methods for efficiently monitoring large research colonies. Here we describe an observational assessment method that scores appearance, posture, mobility, and muscle tone on a 5-point scale that can be completed in about 1 min. A score of 1 indicates no deterioration, whereas a score of 5 indicates severe deterioration. Tests were applied to male Brown Norway rats between 12 and 36 mo of age (n = 32). The rats were participating concurrently in experiments on the behavioral effects of intermittent exposure (approximately every 4 mo) to short-acting environmental chemicals. Results demonstrated that aging-related signs of deterioration did not appear before 18 mo of age. Assessment scores and variability then increased with age. Body weights increased until approximately 24 mo, then remained stable, but decreased after 31 mo for the few remaining rats. The incidence of death increased slightly from 20 to 28 mo of age and then rose sharply; median survival age was approximately 30 mo, with a maximum of 36 mo. The results indicate that our observational assessment method supports efficient monitoring of the health of aging rats and may be useful in studies on susceptibility to diseases, drugs, and toxicants during old age.