Emotional and Anxiety Assessments in CNS Disorders
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In order to model human neuropathological anxiety in rodents, a wide variety of behavioral testing paradigms in animal were
developed. These animal experiments are used to screen novel compounds with anxiolytic or anxiogenic activity. In Section
1, we describe and discuss commonly used anxiety behavioral protocols in detail. The elevated plus maze is based on the conflict
of exploration and rodent’s natural fear to the open and elevated places. The light/dark box is based on the conflict of exploration
and rodent’s natural fear to the light place. The social interaction test is based on the sensitivity of rodent’s social behavior
to novel environments and/or bright light. Open field test is based on the conflict of exploration and rodent’s nature to
fear about the open place.
Fear conditioning is a Pavlovian learning-based behavioral paradigm in which rodents learn to associate stimuli (e.g., sound)
to aversive events (e.g., electric shock). Contextual fear conditioning and cued fear conditioning are two important and similar
conditioning procedures. The subject (mostly rodents) learns to associate the context or cue stimulus with the electric shock.
In the next day, the subjects have the memory of the electric shock and develop freezing behavior (in response to the aversive
condition) even though there is no electric shock to be given. In Section 2, we describe and discuss the cured and contextual
fear conditioning in detail.
