Question: Amy, can you explain the scientific way that you tickle your rats and what your control variables are for the tickling?

Amy Warnock answered on 13 Jun 2018:

Hi Andy, we have certain types of tickle we use (some examples are chasing their tail with our hands, or gently flipping the rats onto their backs and tickling their stomachs) and we try to spread out all of these types of tickling for the different rats. We also precisely time the amount of time they’re tickled each day to make sure that they all receive the same amount of tickling – usually we only tickle each rat for 2 minute a day! As a control for the tickling I just place my hand into the cage with the rat for the same amount of time (2 minutes) which we call ‘passive contact’ instead of tickling the rat.