Project for maintenance and upgrade of collective research infrastructure, the animal facility, from the Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Sao Paulo.

Abstract

The document provides justification and budget forecast for maintenance and improvement of collective research infrastructure , the central animal facility, from the Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo (IP-USP), located on the ground floor of Block A in IP-USP. The central animal facility of IP -USP aims to provide animal maintenance services used in the research developed by the Department of Experimental Psychology. It is located at Av. Mello Moraes , 1721, occupying an area of 144.0 m2. It is constituted of six rooms for keeping the animals, a wash room, an ar-conditioning machine room, an equipment room, a room for manipulation of substances and a hallway . Human resources comprise the Steering Committee, consisting of a teacher, a post- doctoral student and 4 technicians. In the last five years the animal facility has housed and care of animals for research projects developed by five laboratories of the department : Laboratório de Análise Biocomportamental, Laboratório de Análise Experimental do Comportamento, Laboratório de Psicofisiologia Sensorial, Laboratório de Psicofarmacologia e Laboratório de Análise Experimental for the study of Culture. The labs are coordinated by eight professors of the department : Christina Joselevitch , Dora Selma Fix Ventura, Gerson Aparecido Yukio Tomanari , Marcelo Benvenuti , Maria Helena Leite Hunziker , Maria Teresa Araujo Silva, Miriam Garcia Paula Mijares and Paula Debert . These labs are part of two Postgraduate Department programs, the Experimental Psychology Program (grade 7 - CAPES ) and the Neuroscience and Behavior Program (grade 4 - CAPES). The animals housed in the animal facility are obtained from others USP Institutes by prior request by the researchers of the Department. Due to the hiring of new teachers, the demand of animal facility services has grown significantly in the last three years. Specifically , in 2012 the animal facility housed on average per month, 256 animals from four different species : 24 pigeons (Columba livia ), 10 rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus ), 210 rats ( Rattus norvegicus Wistar - ) and 12 fish ( goldfish ). This number increased to 479 animals (44 pigeons, 20 rabbits, rats and 25 390 fish) in 2015. The increased number of animals has exceeded the operating capacity of the bioterium, mainly because of the animal facilities are not adequate to the current rules on the welfare of laboratory animals and health and environmental control. Given this fact, the aim of this proposal is to adapt the bioterium practices and current maintenance of experimental animal's regulations, welfare of laboratory animals and biosecurity in animal houses. (AU)