We would like to test a treatment for anxiety but I'm not very familiar with animal models of the disease. I would be very thankful for a suggestion of a cheap and easy model, preferentially to be used in Wistar rats.
Hi, light/dark model fits into description. However some times using only one model is not sufficient to explain the observed behavior. So in our lab when we evaluate anxiolytic effect of something we use a battery of test such as light/dark, open field, horizontal wire, hole board and diazepam induced sleep tests.
HI,
I did in Rat and poultry as a alternative model. but the question is that whats your aim!
Open field is one of the best methods, I Think
Regards,
Mehdi
Open filed is far from good test for estimation of anxiety! The point with open field test is that no one read the first published article on this subject tentatively!
Read the article attached and it will all be much clearer.
We recently used this test for behavioural response to restraint stress (in mice). The data that we got was almost identical to what the authors reported. This is not basal anxiety, but this might be helpful if you want to activate the HPA axis. It uses open field locomotor activity as the readout, but the most robust changes were not in center time, but in total distance traveled (which increases with stress) and vertical activity (which decreases with stress). I guess stressed mice run more and explore (vertically) less. Not sure if this is what you are looking for, and it is in mice, but similar restraint stress protocols are used for rats.
Dear Vinicius,
Select for anxiety by means of wall-seeking open-field behavior in mice. Balb/c is naturally rather shy mouse strain. We selected an aggressive vs non-aggressive strain from our Swiss albino mice. Selection is cheap, painless and interesting. As you see from my papers you can register more than 30 trait- or state-anxiety behaviors on the open field
Article Twenty-three generations of mice bidirectionally selected fo...
Article Mice Selectively Bred for Open-Field Thigmotaxis: Life Span ...
Dear Vinicius,
It depends on the aspect of anxiety you are interested to evaluate, since anxiety is a non-unitary construct. The most widely used protocols are the open field , light -dark box and elevated plus maze . All these tests are ethologically based of free exploration behavior and stand on the conflict between natural tendency of the animal to explore new environments and neofobia response that it generates . There are also economic models to assess anxiety in situations that involve unexpected reward change, such as instrumental and consummatory successive negative contrast, but theses case are not as fast , since they demand at least 10 days of training.
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