A hitchhiker's guide to behavioral analysis in laboratory rodents

Abstract

Genes and environment are both essential and interdependent determinants of behavioral responses. Behavioral genetics focuses on the role of genes on behavior. In this article, we aim to provide a succinct, but comprehensive, overview of the different means through which behavioral analysis may be performed in rodents. We give general recommendations for planning and performing behavioral experiments in rats and mice, followed by brief descriptions of experimental paradigms most commonly used for the analysis of reflexes, sensory function, motor function and exploratory, social, emotional and cognitive behavior. We end with a discussion of some of the shortcomings of current concepts of genetic determinism and argue that the genetic basis of behavior should be analyzed in the context of environmental factors.

Identification methods in newborn C57BL/6 mice: a developmental and behavioural evaluation

“…36,54 Footprint gait assesses walking patterns and has been used to evaluate movements and motor coordination in rodents, providing information on cerebellar function. 40,56,57 In this study the mice did not show abnormalities in the walking patterns as a consequence of the marking procedure when compared with control animals.…”

“…The rotarod test, measuring locomotor function and coordination, 35,40,44,56,57 confirmed that there were no major differences in the locomotion abilities of individually identified animals except in a particular constant velocity test, at 15 rpm, in which Toe ink females presented a shorter latency time to fall off from the moving rod, but the same was not detected in males. Moreover, when using an accelerating rod (0.6 rpm/s), no differences could be detected between the different groups.…”

“…45,58 -60 It is also used to behaviourally phenotype rodents 35,40,44 by measuring the conflict between exploration of novelty and avoidance of brightly lit open areas as an anxiety indicator, also giving information on locomotor activity. In the present study, no group differences were found in EPM performance.…”

Reduced Anxiety, Conditioned Fear, and Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation in Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid Type 1 Receptor-Deficient Mice

“…Both paradigms are used for measuring state anxiety that is based on the conflict between exploration of novel environments and the avoidance of potentially dangerous situations (Hogg, 1996;Rodgers and Dalvi, 1997;Hascoet et al, 2001;Millan et al, 2003;de Sousa et al, 2006). TRPV1-KO much faster adapted to the aversive light compartment, spent more time in the light compartment in the light-dark test, and explored the open arms of the elevated plus maze more intensively than their wild-type littermates, indicating that they are less anxious.…”

Comparison of spatial learning in the partially baited radial-arm maze task between commonly used rat strains: Wistar, Spargue-Dawley, Long-Evans, and outcrossed Wistar/Sprague-Dawley

“…It has been well documented that the anatomical and genetic background of these two kinds of memory is not the same (Kandel, 2001;Kandel, 2009). The interplay of environmental and genetic factors (Sousa, Almeida & Wotjak, 2006;Wahlsten, Metten, Phillips, et al, 2003) and related differences in brain wiring and biochemistry result in individual but also between-strain variations in learning and memory abilities commonly observed in random human or animal populations (Gökçek-Saraç, Karakurt, Adalı & Jakubowska-Doğru, 2012; Gökçek-Saraç, Adalı & Jakubowska-Doğru, 2013; Jakubowska-Doğru, Gümüşbaş & Kara, 2002). Non-cognitive factors such as sensory perception, emotionality, or locomotor activity may also contribute to this variation.…”