Plus Maze Selection of Anxious and Non-Anxious Rats: A Behavioral and Neurochemical Evaluation

The development of animal models of anxiety is of great importance to detect potential anxiolytic drugs and study the anxiety phenomenon. The selection of anxious and non anxious rats in animal may represent a good procedure to help study rats behavior when tested in animal models. The present study aimed to investigate the differences among rats selected in an elevated plus maze test. Rats were selected as anxious when they spent time measures 1 sd lower than the average in open arms of the maze and non anxious spent 1 sd higher than the average. The non anxious selected rats showed lower emotional reactivity when tested in open field test and social interaction test as well as decrease of 5HT/5HIAA ratio in frontal cortex when compared with anxious selected rats. The results point to differences among the selected rats what suggest the procedure should be considered in anxiety studies.