I have come across different ways to measure anxiety in Wistar rats but I get confused sometimes. Using the open field box as a tool, I know that reduced locomotory activity is an indicator of anxiety in Wistar rats while with the Y maze number of entries is used to measure the animals curiosity and willingness to explore. Why is higher number of entries used to indicate anxiety with Y maze?
The most advisable tests due to their brevity and their sufficient reliability, validity and sensitivity, would be: The Hamilton Anxiety Scale, the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the State / Trait Anxiety Scale (STAI), regardless of the 16 PF Anxiety Scales, in its latest version, and the MMPi, also in its most recent version.
Urination (spots) and defecation (boluses) as well as thigmotaxis are indicators of anxiety.
I would only venture a hypothetical "guess" as to why the Y-maze may generate more activity in that it represents a "Forced" choice where a choice has to be made that one is clearly uncertain and "anxiously" insecure about! Such conditions prevent avoidance and therefore an increase in anxious activity would be expected as an expression of over-reactivity. Perhaps a better term for this is not so much anxiety but mania?!
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