Pharmacologically Distinctive Behaviors other than Burying Marbles during the Marble Burying Test in Mice

Abstract

In the marble burying test, we focused on the 5 distinctive behavioral parameters of mice other than burying marbles, i.e. digging, latency to the first digging, exploration around marbles, rearing and locomotor activity. Typical anxiolytics or antidepressants with different mechanisms, fluvoxamine (30 mg/kg, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), bupropion (60 mg/kg, noradrenaline and dopamine reuptake inhibitor), imipramine (60 mg/kg, tricyclic antidepressant) and diazepam (10 mg/kg, benzodiazepine) were used to examine whether these behavioral parameters are sensitive to pharmacological treatments. Each of the drugs demonstrated an individual action pattern on the 4 behavioral parameters (latency to the first digging, exploration around marbles, rearing and locomotor activity). On the other hand, all 4 drugs reduced burying marbles and digging, which were correlated with each other. These results suggest that the former 4 behavioral parameters are sensitive to pharmacological treatment and that pharmacological regulation mechanisms of them may be different from burying marbles and digging. They could be useful to identify the type of action of a test drug like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, noradrenaline and dopamine reuptake inhibitor, tricyclic antidepressant or benzodiazepine.

Marble Burying and Nestlet Shredding as Tests of Repetitive, Compulsive-like Behaviors in Mice

“…Therefore, mice do not bury marbles specifically but in the process of digging and burrowing, marbles become covered by the bedding. This potential limitation can be tempered by the observation that digging correlates with burying and not with other behaviors emitted during this test [19][20][21] . Another limitation of marble burying is under-estimation of the behavior in animals that show excessive amounts of digging and burrowing (e.g.…”

Progression of Behavioral and CNS Deficits in a Viable Murine Model of Chronic Neuronopathic Gaucher Disease

“…However, this sensitivity may not be due to abnormal obsession/compulsion, but rather to general anxiety. This is because no difference was detected in the numbers of marbles buried, which seem to be more consistently related with repetitive obsessive/compulsive behavior than other parameters [68, 69]. With disease progression, 9V/null mice became hyposensitive to marbles at 12 months of age or older in both genders.…”

Using mice to model Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: From genes to circuits

“…In addition, the pharmacologic response profile of digging-related tasks, particularly marble burying, may be more consistent with that of generalized anxiety (i.e. responsive to benzodiazepines) than of OCD 117 ; however, there is also evidence that marble burying is not correlated with anxiety measures in the open field and light-dark test, and may be more appropriately considered as a proxy measure of repetitive digging 118 . All told, it is therefore likely that more complex behavioral paradigms may have greater translational relevance for the study of OCD neural circuitry.…”