Behavioural characterization in rats using the elevated alley Suok test

Allan V. Kalueff*, Anna Minasyan, Pentti Tuohimaa

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Exploration of the long elevated alley (the rat Suok test) enables behavioural characterisation of anxiety, activity and neurological phenotypes in rats. Here we show that this new test is sensitive to different types of anxiety in rats, including drugs (pentylenetetrazole)-induced, light-induced and socially induced (encounter with an unfamiliar male) anxiety, as assessed by reduced Suok test horizontal, vertical, directed exploration and stops. High anxiety also leads to higher motor incoordination (as assessed by the number of falls and hind-paw slips), suggesting that this test may be used for combined profiling of anxiety, motor-vestibular anomalies and anxiety-induced motor incoordination in rats. This new behavioural paradigm may be widely used in neurobehavioural stress research, including modelling of stress-evoked states and pharmacological screening of psychotropic drugs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)52-57
Number of pages6
JournalBehavioural Brain Research
Volume165
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Nov 2005
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Anxiety
  • Elevated alley
  • Exploration
  • Motor incoordination
  • Rats
  • Stress
  • Suok test

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