Happy Mice

These lucky lab mice are enjoying an ‘enriched environment’ – a cage with plenty of stimulating toys to play with, tunnels to wriggle through and even a running wheel. Intriguingly, researchers have discovered that these improved living conditions have a measurable impact on certain types of cells in the animals’ immune systems, compared to mice housed in sawdust-lined cages without the fun and games. Just two weeks living in the enriched environment seems to boost the activity of special T cells, making them more effective at fighting off infections. These cells had also switched on over 50 genes involved in healing and infection control. Many people suffer from autoimmune disorders such as allergies, asthma and arthritis, and although there’s much more work to be done to prove a link between human immune function and our living spaces, maybe one day we’ll see doctors prescribing a home makeover alongside more conventional treatments.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image from work by Lorenza Rattazzi and colleagues
• William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK
• Image copyright held by original authors
• Research published in Frontiers in Immunology, September 2016