Abstract

Psychiatry has proven to be among the least penetrable clinical disciplines for the development of satisfactory in vivo model systems for evaluating novel treatment approaches. However, mood and anxiety disorders remain poorly understood and inadequately treated. With the explosion in the use of genetically modified mice, enormous research efforts have been focused on developing mouse models of psychiatric disorders. The success of this approach is largely contingent on the usefulness of available behavioural models of depression- and anxiety-related behaviours in mice. Here, we assess the current status of research into developing appropriate tests for assessing such behaviours.

Author affiliations

1. Neuroscience Research, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Basel CH 4055, Switzerland, and Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, University College Cork, Ireland (from Jan 2006).
2. Section on Behavioural Science and Genetics, Laboratory for Integrative Neuroscience, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.

Correspondence to: John F. Cryan¹ Email: johncryan@hotmail.com

Correspondence to: Andrew Holmes² Email: holmesan@mail.nih.gov

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