Three murine anxiety models: results from multiple inbred strain comparisons

The literature surrounding rodent models of human anxiety disorders is discrepant concerning which models reflect anxiety‐like behavior distinct from general activity and whether different models are measuring the same underlying constructs. This experiment compared the responses of 15 inbred mouse strains (129S1/SvlmJ, A/J, AKR/J, BALB/cByJ, C3H/HeJ, C57BL/6J, C57L/J, CBA/J, CE/J, DBA/2J, FVB/NJ, NZB/B1NJ, PL/J, SJL/J and SWR/J) in three anxiety‐like behavioral tasks (light/dark test, elevated zero‐maze and open field) to examine whether responses were phenotypically and/or genetically correlated across tasks. Significant strain differences were found for all variables examined. Principal components analyses showed that variables associated with both activity and anxiety‐like behaviors loaded onto one factor, while urination and defecation loaded onto another factor. Our findings differ from previous research by suggesting that general activity and anxiety‐related behaviors are linked, negatively correlated and cannot easily be dissociated in these assays. However, these findings may not necessarily generalize to other unconditioned anxiety‐like behavioral tests.