Diet-regulated behavior: FVB/N mice fed a lean diet exhibit increased nocturnal bouts of aggression between littermates

The hyperactive FVB/N inbred mouse strain is widely used for transgenic research applications, although rarely for behavioral studies. These mice have visual impairments via retinal degeneration, but are considered highly intelligent and rely largely on olfaction. While investigating diet-induced obesity in autotaxin transgenic FVB/N mice, we observed an increase in the necessity for male, but not female, cage separations. Based on the observations, we hypothesized that feeding FVB/N mice a lean diet increases nocturnal bouts of aggression between male littermates. The diets of adult littermates were switched from normal chow to either ad libitum high-fat (45% fat) or lean (10% fat) matched diets for 27 weeks, whereby the mice reached an average of 43 g versus 35 g, respectively. Then, cage separations due to nocturnal bouts of aggression became mandatory, even though littermates peacefully cohabitated for 10–16 weeks previously. Since the data was of an unusual nature, it required uncommon statistical me...