Mouse Ethology: Effect of different human and rodentized music upon the social and individual behaviour, general feeling and genetics-environment interaction of mice II. Effect of original and five octaves higher music of Bach and Mozart on the behaviour of mice of different genotypes

Summary Background: The importance of acoustic stimuli plays a different role in the life of laboratory rodents. Too loud noise and/or vibration may be an important stressor, while a well-chosen background music may counteract these harmful effects. Objectives: In this study the authors investigated the effect of music of Bach and Mozart on the behaviour of mice. Materials and Methods: In the first trial twenty adult male (SPF, CD1) mice were placed by pair in cages and video and ultrasound (US) recording was made. After the basal ethogram Mozart and Bach music were applied in normal and “rodentized” versions (has been made by increasing the pitches to the hearing range of mice, 1-110kHz). In the second trial twelve male BALB/c mice were in vestigated using TiBeSplit open-field equipment (Figure 1–4) with human and rodentized music, and in silence as control. Results and Discussion: First trial: during all sessions rearing get significantly more frequent and running time decreased (Table 1). No US voices were emitted by the mice. Second trial: During the music, the length of distance, the local and large movement, and the number of spontaneous changes of direction sig nificantly decreased (Table 2). On the contrary, resting time and time spent at the wall significantly increased under the influence of rodentized music. Taken together, the effect of rodentized music differs that of the human version and the genotype plays also a role. The basically calm CD1 mice got more active (more rearing, less running) and the more excitable BALB/c animals became less nervous owing to the musical stimuli