Depression researchers rethink mouse swim test

The group wants the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to stop supporting the use of the forced-swim test and similar behavioural assessments by its employees and grant recipients. "The National Institute of Mental Health has for some time been discouraging the use of certain behavioral assays, including the forced swim and tail suspension test, as models of depression" Gordon said in a statement. "Most of them will admit that the tests are not showing what they are supposed to do" Todd Gould, a neurobiologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, acknowledges the test's poor track record, but says the procedure has proved useful for his research into whether the 'party drug' ketamine and related substances are effective antidepressants2.