Reliability of high and low anxiety-related behaviour:
Behavioural Brain Research. 2002-10-01; 136(1): 227-237
DOI: 10.1016/s0166-4328(02)00135-3
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Salomé N(1), Viltart O, Darnaudéry M, Salchner P, Singewald N, Landgraf R, Sequeira H, Wigger A.
Author information:
(1)Laboratoire de Neurosciences du Comportement, Université de Lille 1, SN4,
59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France.
The reliability of behavioural data constitutes a major concern in the
neuroscience field. Indeed, discrepancies in the behavioural patterns of mice or
rats in the same anxiety tests performed in different laboratories have been
reported recently. The question raised by such data addressed, in particular,
the selection and breeding of two lines of rats on the basis of their high (HAB)
and low (LAB) anxiety-related behaviour in the elevated plus-maze test at the
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich (Germany). As the majority of the
behavioural data in these animals has been derived from research carried out in
this institute, the aims of the present study were: (1) to test the reliability
of the differences in anxiety-related behaviour of these rats in two other
laboratories (Villeneuve d’Ascq, France and Innsbruck, Austria); and (2) to
determine how the different behavioural traits were associated in both HAB and
LAB rats by a principal component analysis. Results were in agreement with the
studies performed in Munich, as the divergence in anxiety-related behaviour of
the two lines was highly consistent in all tests performed in Villeneuve d’Ascq
and Innsbruck. Moreover, the most important parameters to discriminate the two
lines were similar to those found in a previous study. Finally, the principal
component analysis again confirmed that the selection of HAB and LAB rats is
based on anxiety-related behaviour rather than locomotor activity.