Laboratory rats are cognitively sophisticated animals whose welfare in research settings benefits enormously from enrichment and social housing.
Decades of research on rat cognition and emotional life have revealed animals of extraordinary complexity. Laboratory rats can experience boredom, loneliness, fear, and positive emotional states including play-induced joy. Welfare improvements in rat housing and handling are not merely ethical requirements but also improve the reliability and reproducibility of research findings, as stress significantly confounds experimental results.