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Measuring behavior of animal models: faults and remedies

Nature Methods volume 9, pages 1167–1170 (2012)Cite this article

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Widely used behavioral assays need re-evaluation and validation against their intended use. We focus here on measures of chronic anxiety in mouse models and posit that widely used assays such as the open-field test are performed at the wrong time, for inadequate durations and using inappropriate mouse strains. We propose that behavioral assays be screened for usefulness on the basis of their replicability across laboratories.

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Figure 1: Comparing anxiety behavior between BALB/c and wild mice.

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Acknowledgements

Our research is supported by grants from the Israel Science Foundation of The Israel Academy of Science to I.G. and Y.B. and by a special grant from Tel Aviv University's vice president of research. Y.B. was supported at the later stage of the research by European Research Council Advanced Researcher grant (PSARPS). We thank Noldus EthoVision for letting us use their tracking system and N. Kafkafi for his assistance in writing the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ehud Fonio is in the Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.,

    Ehud Fonio

  2. Ilan Golani is in the Department of Zoology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences the Sagol School of Neuroscience, The Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.,

    Ilan Golani

  3. Yoav Benjamini is in the Department of Statistics and Operations Research, The Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.,

    Yoav Benjamini

Authors
  1. Ehud Fonio
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Correspondence to Ehud Fonio.

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The authors declare competing financial interests: details are available at http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/nmeth.2252.

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Fonio, E., Golani, I. & Benjamini, Y. Measuring behavior of animal models: faults and remedies. Nat Methods 9, 1167–1170 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2252

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