Temporal patterns of rat behaviour in the central platform of the elevated plus maze. Comparative analysis between male subjects of strains with different basal levels of emotionality

6533b7ddfe1ef96bd12748ca

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Temporal patterns of rat behaviour in the central platform of the elevated plus maze. Comparative analysis between male subjects of strains with different basal levels of emotionality

Giuseppe Crescimanno G. Di Giovanni G. Di Giovanni F. Faulisi Maurizio Casarrubea Magnus S. Magnusson F. Caternicchia Arcangelo Benigno Andrea Santangelo

subject

Male Elevated plus maze medicine.medical_specialty Time Factors medicine.drug_class Maze learning Wistar Rats as laboratory animals Anxiety Rats Inbred WKY Settore BIO/09 - Fisiologia Anxiolytic 050105 experimental psychology 03 medical and health sciences Basal (phylogenetics)0302 clinical medicine Ethogram Species Specificity Sniffing Emotionality Internal medicine Adaptation Psychological Male rats medicine Animals 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Rats Wistar Maze Learning Neuroscience (all)General Neuroscience 05 social sciences DA/Han Male rat T-pattern analysi Actigraphy Central platform Endocrinology Anxiogenic Multivariate Analysis Exploratory Behavior Elevated plus maze Psychology Neuroscience 030217 neurology & neurosurgery

description

We have analyzed the temporal patterns of behaviour of male rats of the Wistar and DA/Han strains on the central platform of the elevated plus maze. The ethogram encompassed 10 behavioural elements. Durations, frequencies and latencies showed quantitative differences as to walking and sniffing activities. Wistar rats displayed significantly lower latency and significantly higher durations and frequencies of walking activities. DA/Han rats showed a significant increase of sniffing duration. In addition, DA/Han rats showed a significantly higher amount of time spent in the central platform. Multivariate T-pattern analysis revealed differences in the temporal organization of behaviour of the two rat strains. DA/Han rats showed (a) higher behavioural complexity and variability and (b) a significantly higher mean number of T-patterns than Wistar rats. Taken together, T-pattern analysis of behaviour in the centre of the elevated plus maze can noticeably improve the detection of subtle features of anxiety related behaviour. We suggest that T-pattern analysis could be used as sensitive tool to test the action of anxiolytic and anxiogenic manipulations.

year	journal	country	edition	language
2016-08-01	Journal of Neuroscience Methods

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2015.07.024