Marble Burrying Test

The marble burying behavior test is an acute test.

Marble burrying test.

Since findings reported in the literature indicate that marble burying behavior. However some investigators incorporate the sub acute treatment regimen as an essential component for screening anti compulsive agents. Following the last baseline behavioral screen the bedding material of the 18 n and the 18 h animals was exchanged with sawdust. An increasing number of investigators utilize the marble burying assay despite the paucity of information available regarding what underlies the behavior.

Burrows escape tunnels and in standard cage bedding and the nestlet shred test capitalizes on the fact that mice are nesting animals by nature that build nests for protection of themselves and their offspring against environmental conditions e. When mice are placed in a novel cage a common response is to show increased digging behavior. The marble burying test is a useful model of both obsessive compulsive like ocd behavior and or anxiety like behavior. The marble burying test is used to record the number of marbles buried by mice placed in a novel environment.

The test exhibits between laboratory methodological differences and demonstrates positive treatment responses to an array of pharmacotherapies creating doubts. Mice which are placed individually in a cage bury glass marbles that are present in the cage. When put in a cage with marbles mice with ocd like symptoms tend to engage in a high degree of repetitive behaviors including digging while mice with a high degree of anxiety tend to engage in a high degree of digging in. Some strains show decreased burying behaviour.

The marble burying test measures one acute dose of anti anxiety agent for thirty minutes. In the present investigation the mb test was applied as previously described broekkamp et al 1986 with respect to the setup for a one zone paradigm with slight modifications. The marble burying task can be used both as an indicator of obsessive compulsive like ocd behavior and or anxiety like behavior. We tested the possibility that a genetic component underlies marble burying in mice and if there is a genetic correlation with other anxiety like traits.

There is also a genetic component to this test. It can be weeks before a noticeable change is observed in patients. Marble burying as an anxiety model in conclusion although marble burying was reduced by doses of diazepam and zimeldine which did not affect activity in a locomotor test we have not been able to find other evidence that marble burying models anxiety either from its behavioral characteristics or from the actions of anxiogenic agents. This test has some predictive value for anti depressant and or anxiolytic drugs.

Mice with ocd like symptoms tend to engage in a high degree of repetitive behaviors including digging.