behavior on animal model - (Dec/02/2010 )

hi all,
Do you know about behavioral tests?
if so, im doing open field test on mice,measuring the distance in the center and the border.. for control and diseased animals,
im not really convinced that open field shows index of anxiety..
do you have ideas about anxiety behavior and how to perform in specific manner
thanks

As far as I remember mice (and other animals) avoid open fields and bright light, there's also a technical term for this, wall-seeking behaviour (?) (and from an evolutionary point of view it makes sense as it increases survival compared to animals that run freely over an open area; even humans show this behaviour).
If you compare treated (e.g. with a drug that suppresses the avoidance behaviour) and untreated (control), then there should be differences in behaviour, movement types, or times they stay somewhere etc.
Of course it works only the first time (as mice learn and remember it at least partly) and only for short time as after some time they get used to it.
Hope this helps.

luciana on Thu Dec 2 14:54:16 2010 said:

You can check THIS out...high tech and pretty sure highway robbery but you can have an idea about the behavioral tests you can perform...

first there are many tests for rodents and these are quite sensitive tests. If you could have someone in your lab or other labshow it, thats ideal for learning and set up. Everything depends on the question that you wish to address.

Amphetamine induced anxiety is something people always use as a control.

luciana on Thu Dec 2 14:54:16 2010 said:

Hi there,

So there are a variety of behavioral tests you can use for anxiety. The open field test examining thigmotaxis (i.e, staying near the walls vs the center of the field)is only one of many. There is the elevated plus maze, light/dark box, social interaction tests, marble burying and probably a few more. The one thing you need to realize if you are studying anxiety, however, is that it is not a unitary phenomenon. In other words, there are different types of and aspects to anxiety, not just one general "anxiety" definition (although I suppose this could be up for debate to some extent...). So as a previous person mentioned, the anxiety test you use may depend in part on the specific question you are trying to ask. Additionally, I would not be surprised if you got varying results on different "anxiety" behavioral measures. I would take a close look at the literature and familiarize yourself with your options.

As far as how to perform anxiety tests there are some very important things to consider, as with doing any kind of behavior. 1) You need to take care with regards to how you handle your animals. It's important to do things like habituate the animals to the room in which the anxiety test will be taking place for several days prior to any testing. 2) If you are doing injections or what not it may be worthwhile to do some additional handling or scruffing so the technique is not unfamiliar to the animals and stress is minimized prior to the test. If you don't do such things you may actually be measuring an interaction between your treatment and the stress of injection. 3) Lighting can be very important as well. In general brighter lights will tend to provoke more anxiety and dimmer lights less, so if your lights are too bright/dim you might see a ceiling/floor effect....

These are just some of the things to consider. If you have folks that have done a lot of behavior available to you and you're not experienced in this then it would be worth talking with them about the finer points of obtaining consistent behavior from mice. Getting consistent behavior can be very challenging in rodents, so good luck!

MM

Thank you very much for your interaction about anxiety behavior in rodent!
In fact, Im not looking to specific anxiety behavior, thing that is very interesting to focus on . What im willing to study as beginning, is to see if my animal model of inflammation, shows anxiety behavior, so,I started to do open field test, and also elevated plus maze, i have some preliminary results on open field which show mild effect on the animal model in comparision to control.
but, I have to analyse EPM data and confirm this anxiety!
otherwise, i will not be convinced from open field data!
I would also ask if by combining only open field and elevated plus maze, its worth to confirm that treated mice are anxious in comparision to non treated!
thank you