Putative activity of hydroalcoholic and aqueous infusion extracts of Echium amoenum L. was investigated in mice using the rotarod model of motor coordination and the elevated plus maze model of anxiety. The extracts were administered intraperitonealy (i.p.) once, one hour before performing the tests. Preliminary phytochemical study of the plant, with standard procedures, showed that it contains...

The elevated plus maze test is a rodent model of anxiety that is used extensively in the discovery of novel anxiolytic agents and to investigate the psychological and neurochemical basis of anxiety. The model is based on Montgomery's 1 observation that rats spent less time exploring the 'open' arms of a novel 'Y'-shaped elevated maze than an enclosed arm. The elevated plus maze used today 2 is ...

MHC-congenic mice prefer to mate with mice of different MHC types and are able to discriminate between MHC-congenic mice by their urine odors, but nothing is known about behavioral differences among MHC-congenic mice. The present experiments examine the strain and sex differences in MHC-congenic C57BL/6J and B6-H-2K mice with respect to exploration and fear motivated behaviors in the elevated p...

Several lines of research on human and rodent subjects have demonstrated that early-life stress results in multiple negative outcomes, including increased incidence of psychopathologies. The current study sought to further the research on adolescent versus adult rats on anxiety-like reactions to chronic stress. The purpose of the current study was to assess whether 7 days of chronic restraint s...

The elevated plus-maze is a widely used model of anxiety in rodents and has recently been suggested as a putative model of anxiety or fear in swine. The aim of the present experiment was to examine the effects of a pretest blood sampling procedure on the behaviour of weaned pigs in an elevated plus-maze. Animals in the control group were lifted one-by-one into a transport trolley and moved to t...

Grooming behavior has been reported to be a response to novelty and other stressors. However, studies that sought to identify anxiety-related measures in the elevated plus-maze have not found grooming as a reliable index. Grooming has been implied with dearousal after a stressful experience. In the present work, a detailed investigation of this behavior was performed in a test with a longer dur...