Stereotaxic neurosurgery in rodents is used by a variety of people working at research laboratories (research staff, technicians, students at animal facilities...). The present handbook presents all the steps necessary to complete a stereotaxic neurosurgery protocol in accordance with current animal welfare guidelines. This book will guide surgeons step by step, from anesthesia to the post-surgery recovery procedures, including asepsis of the surgical tools and surgical zone, analgesia, correctly identifying the reference points on the skull and brain targets, etc. In keeping with the current international trends, the authors above all focus on the following points: the consideration of pain and how to best treat it depending on the type of surgery; and ensuring asepsis. This book will serve as an important reference work and valuable guidebook for the scientific community.

This two-volume set presents a comprehensive description of laboratory animal genetics, diseases, health monitoring, nutrition, and the environmental impact on animal testing. It considers the ethics of animal experimentation through a complete review of European and North American legislation on the topic. It discusses alternatives to animal experiments, including the use of isolated organs, cell cultures, and computer simulations. The book also examines general methods, including experimental design and statistical evaluation, non-surgical and surgical techniques, anesthesia, and post-mortem examinations. Reviews of animal models for studying diseases of different organ systems, infectious diseases, cancer, and toxicology are featured as well.

Scents can carry a lot of important information about the environment, conspecifics and other species. While some of these scents are positively related, as the odor of food, mating partners, or familiar conspecifics, other scents are associated with negative situations and events, e.g. the occurrence of a predator, an aggressive territorial conspecific or spoiled food. The present research topic is focused on such “scents that matter”, i.e., scents that are crucial for the survival of an organism. Since many years, the importance of scents always attracts scientists to investigate how scents affect the behavior of mammals, via which mechanisms scents are perceived and how scents modulate neural circuitries responsible for behavior. We believe that this research topic gives a nice overview on current ‘olfactory research.’ Many of the contributions are focused on scents with aversive effects, i.e. kairomones or pheromones that warn about potential threats. These studies range from research articles identifying new active odor components of predator odors, describing the induced behavioral changes and the underlying neuroanatomical and neurochemical mechanisms, to review articles summarizing the findings of the last decades on this field. Other articles are focused on the effects of scents in social behaviors or on associative learning. This research topic also represents nicely the current combination of methodological approaches in ‘olfactory research’: cell biologists, geneticists, behavioral pharmacologists, neuroanatomists, and computational modelers work effectively together to unravel the mechanisms of how scents matters in humans and animals.

Research institutions have or are planning to build, expand and renovate animal research facilities to keep up with the demands of biomedical research caused in part by growth in the use of genetically altered rodents and the upsurge of research in infectious diseases. Properly designed facilities greatly facilitate effective management and high-quality day-to-day animal care that is required to optimally support animal research and testing. There are multiple solutions to address the myriad of factors that influence the design and construction of animal research facilities. There is no "best design applicable for all facilities and arguably not even a single "best design for a given facility. For this reason, Planning and Designing Research Animal Facilities is not intended to be a "how to book. The goal is to cover the basic programmatic requirements of animal research facilities, provide ideas for meeting those requirements while, hopefully, stimulating the creative process in which designers in consultation with those who work in animal research facilities generate even better ideas. That is how progress has been made and will continue to be made. - Facilitates communication between the parties involved in planning and designing animal facilities by providing contemporary information, and stimulating creativity that will help lead to wise decisions and advance the knowledge base for planning, design and constructing animal research facilities

This book covers stereotactic principles as well as functional stereotaxis, covering the history and uses of the techniques, treatments for specific conditions, and future developments. Includes a DVD demonstrating surgical procedures.

'This is one of those books that movement disorder specialists in all fields, including neurosurgeons, neurologists, neuropsychologists, basic scientists, and others will want to have on their shelves.' 'On balance I feel this book is a must on the reading list of groups involved in movement disorders surgery. We, in our group, have enjoyed it immensely.'