Animal models of psychiatric disorders can belong to both categories. The most simple models, notably those aimed at testing psychotropic drugs or other treatments—“empirical validity models”53—often have a limited, if any, theoretical background. This is also the case for those developed to simulate a specific sign or symptom (“Behavioral
similarity models”). However, “theory-driven” and “mechanistic” models (according to McKinney’s terminology), in particular those developed to study etiological aspects and/or the neurochemical and genetic mechanisms underlying anxiety disorders, often Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical have an elaborate theoretical background. How do we measure anxiety in animals? The Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical only PKI-587 mouse variables that can be observed and measured in
animals are the behavioral and physiological responses elicited when they are exposed to more or less naturalistic, potentially anxiogenic situations under controlled laboratory conditions. Setup and protocols used to record these experimental data are usually called “tests,” and constitute instruments (or tools) to measure anxiety-related parameters. It should be mentioned that, in the animal research literature, particularly as regards the so-called Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical preclinical (pharmacological) studies, the term “model” is often used abusively to characterize a test, ie, a particular experimental setup (eg, “The elevated plus-maze as a model of anxiety in rodents”!). This usage should be avoided, because it is misleading: a model in the true Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical sense has a more elaborate theoretical background and may include several tests. In the following section, we will mention a few examples of (mainly ethological) anxiety tests for rodents, which are by far the most common species used as animals models nowadays. There are over 30 different procedures (and many variations) described in the literature, with two main categories: unconditioned
response tests (which require no training and usually have a high eco/ethological Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical validity) and Astemizole conditioned response tests (which often require extensive training and may show interference with mnemonic and motivational processes).54 A few examples are shown in Table I. More information regarding practical aspects of testing can be found in the literature55-58 and in the references in Table I. Although measurements can be done using a single test, it is better to use a battery of these tests (for instance, the open field, the EPM, and a dark/light transition test) to assess each individual’s behavioral phenotype, since these tests measure anxiety under different conditions.59 Data obtained from different tests can be combined to create ”derived“ variables which offer a more complete description of the individual behavioral profiles.