Strain and Sex Differences in Anxiety-Like and Social Behaviors in C57BL/6J and BALB/cJ Mice

Abstract

Abstract:Mood disorders are more frequent in women than men, however, the majority of research has focused on male rodents as animal models. We used a variety of common behavioral tests to look for differences in anxiety-like and social behaviors between and within C57BL/6J and BALB/cJ mice. Our results show that female C57BL/6J mice exhibited lower levels of anxiety-like behavior and higher levels of activity than female BALB/cJ during the open field and elevated plus maze tests. Principal component analysis generated more factors in the behavioral variables of males than females. In the open field, a sex difference was also found and factor 1 emerged as anxiety in males, and motor activity in females. While C57BL/6J mice were found to have higher levels of social exploration and social contacts, differences were found between the sexes (females were more social) in both strains for this measure and also for anxiety-like behaviors. When interacting with animals of the same sex, levels of sniffing body and huddling in both male and female C57BL/6J mice were higher than those in male and female BALB/cJ mice. However, in the between-sex interactions, male C57BL/6J mice sniffed the stimulus mouse less, and female C57BL/6J mice sniffed the stimulus more compared to BALB/cJ mice. This study provides important behavioral phenotypes and confirms the multidimensional behavioral structure of two widely used mice strains.

Group housing and nest building only slightly ameliorate the cold stress of typical housing in female C57BL/6J mice

“…We chose this strain because of its widespread use in research. Other strains of mice, however, have varying levels of social behavior and undergo varying levels of behavioral thermoregulation in response to relatively cool T a s (1,27), and hence, our observations may be strainspecific. In addition, female mice (from a heterogeneous strain of HS/Ibg) huddle at both warm and cool T a s, whereas male mice huddle much less when exposed to warm T a s (5).…”

Reducing the Noise in Behavioral Assays: Sex and Age in Adult Zebrafish Locomotion

“…16 An et al further demonstrated differences in anxiety and baseline activity of mice when compared by sex. 17 Others have indicated differences in mouse behaviors by sex as it relates to depression and food reward response. 16,[18][19][20][21] Following these findings, it has been recommended that scientists working with mice should specify the sex and age of the animals used in their studies.…”

How does sex matter? Behavior, stress and animal models of neurobehavioral disorders

“…For example in laboratory rats and mice, females are more active and less anxious in several tests than males, but such a sex difference varies depending upon context, strain and age (Johnson and File, 1991;Palanza et al, 2001;An et al, 2011;ter Horst et al, 2012;Gioiosa et al, 2007Gioiosa et al, , 2013, while in other species of rodents, such as meadow voles, males are more active than females (Perrot-Sinal et al, 2000). Thus, even between rodent species traditionally used as experimental models there is a differential bias on sex differences in behavior due to their evolutionary history.…”