Data from: The use of preferred social stimuli as rewards for rhesus macaques in behavioural neuroscience

Macaques are often motivated to perform in neuroscientific experiments by implementing fluid restriction protocols. Daily access to water is controlled and the monkeys are rewarded with droplets of fluid for performing correct trials in the laboratory. Although these protocols are widely used and highly effective, it is important from a 3Rs perspective to investigate refinements that may help to lessen the severity of the fluid restriction applied. We assessed the use of social stimuli (images of conspecifics) as rewards for four rhesus macaques performing simple cognitive tasks. We found that individual preferences for images of male faces, female perinea and control stimuli could be identified in each monkey. However, using preferred images did not translate into effective motivators on a trial-by-trial basis: animals preferred fluid rewards, even when fluid restriction was relaxed. There was no difference in the monkeys’ performance of a task when using greyscale versus colour images. Based on our findings, we cannot recommend the use of social stimuli, in this form, as a refinement to current fluid restriction protocols. We discuss the potential alternatives and possibilities for future research.

猕猴（macaques）通常借助液体限制范式来驱动其参与神经科学实验：研究人员会管控猕猴的每日饮水量，并在实验室中当猕猴完成正确试次时，以液滴作为奖励。尽管此类方案应用广泛且效果优异，但从3R原则（3Rs）的视角出发，探索可降低液体限制严苛程度的优化方案仍具备重要意义。我们针对四只执行简单认知任务的恒河猴（rhesus macaques），评估了社交刺激（同种个体图像）作为奖励的应用效果。研究发现，每只猕猴均展现出对雄性面孔图像、雌性会阴区域图像以及对照刺激的个体偏好。然而，在逐试次的实验框架下，偏好的图像并未转化为有效的激励手段：即便放宽了液体限制，猕猴仍更倾向于选择液体奖励。使用灰度图像与彩色图像时，猕猴的任务表现并无显著差异。基于本次研究结果，我们不建议采用此类形式的社交刺激，作为现有液体限制方案的优化手段。最后，我们讨论了潜在的替代方案以及未来的研究方向。