I've heard that at present it is not allowed to submit papers using deprivation regimes lower than 83 % of ad-libitum body weight for rats on most of the major journals of behavior and/or neuroscience research.
Will be a better option plan a regimen of 23:30 hours without food with 30:00 min ad libitum. The experimental phase must begin near the last phase if you need maximum drive in the animal
There is no general consensus about it, it depends more in the particular journal editor and reviewers that reviews you paper.
But, any restriction in a particular journal, based on your experience?
In my experience there is no particular restriction but the 30 minutes ad libitum access or the 83% calculation are the general standard. Anyway, anything below 80% and above 85% will be almost surely rejected due to bioethical aspects or useless to motivate behavior, respectively.
We have published with 81 - 84%. Less than 80% is questionable and definitely not before 75%
Check the animal welfare laws in your area carefully, and be sure to write your intended food deprivation into the proposal to the ethics commission of your university. If you get the ethics approval for your study, and the level of food deprivation is legal, then journals should accept it. Whether reviewers accept it is a different story...
I agree with Amelia.
Check the local regulations. Usually, anything bellow 80% is considered unethical. I have used animals at about 90% of the original weight (I think 85% was the minimum acceptable), and I think that is acceptable BUT it is also a strong stressor! So, yes, the reviewers might be harsher analysing your protocol than the editors. Restrict food as little as possible.
Finally, animals at different ages have different growth rates, so that might influence the final acceptable percentage (although I think there is no specific regulation regarding that fact).
Agreed. Typically you take a week of baseline weights, bring the animals down to 85% of their baseline weight (by restricting not depriving) and then bring their weight up over time according to their age (ultimately it asymptotes). There are growth charts for each strain online or you can request them (if you purchase rather than breed) from your breeder. The well being of your rats will ultimately affect your data, so it is in your best interest to restrict as little as possible (usually you restrict to get them interested and then lessen the restriction) and work with your shaping protocol accordingly.
Another option is to have a group of matched control of the same age and strain where you measure daily food intake. Your deprived group will be at 80% of the food intake of the control group. This solve your general question on acceptable levels of food deprivation. There are also issues related to the effect on the parameters you are measuring, and you are not mentioning them in your question. If you are measuring effects on blood parameters, then it is also important how and when you provide access to food to your animals. Rat and mice have different feeding behaviour distribution over the 24h. If you give access to food to food restricted animals in a phase of the L/D cycle when they normally would eat minimal amount of food this will cause a shift in release of a lot of hormones...
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