A refined method to monitor arousal from hibernation in the European hamster

摘要

European hamster displays hibernation after exposure to short photoperiod and low ambient temperature. a Study design to induce the hibernation phenotype. Animals were transferred from long photoperiod (14 h of light per day, 14:10) and 22℃ to short photoperiod (10 h of light per day, 10:14) for 8 weeks. The ambient temperature (Ta) was lowered to 10 °C, a temperature of 9.6 ± 1 °C was observed. b Core body temperature (Tb) measurement from a European hamster displaying torpor-arousal cycling. The grey dotted line indicates the average ambient temperature (Ta) over the experiment