Comorbid sensorimotor and emotional profiles in the forced swim test immobility and predictive value of a single assay in very old female mice.

Comorbid sensorimotor and emotional profiles in the forced swim test immobility and predictive value of a single assay in very old female mice. Exp Gerontol. 2019 Mar 13;: Authors: Ramírez-Boix P, Giménez-Llort L Abstract The increase of prevalence of mental health problems in the elderly due to the aging of the population becomes an outstanding issue since in most individuals it happens in an already complex multimorbid scenario that may include frailty and age-related medical conditions. Depression, soon the major cause of global disease burden, can be found as an age-related comorbidity and frailty, or as part of neurodegenerative diseases and where females are more vulnerable to it. Thought the multifactorial aetiology and heterogeneous nature of depression render it difficult to be modelled in animals, active behaviours elicited in the Forced Swimming Test (FST) are used to screen antidepressant treatments. However, interpretation of immobility remains controversial. The present work addressed this issue in very-old (21 months) female C57bl/6 × 129 mice, also with the concern that a '6 minutes × 2 days' protocol can result demanding for a very-old animal and confounding factors may also arise. Animals were behaviourally assessed for sensorimotor functions, emotionality and anxiety-like behaviours, novelty seeking, and immobility in a 2-days FST. The predictive value of the first day evidenced that one single assay ...
Source: Experimental Gerontology - Category: Geriatrics Authors: Tags: Exp Gerontol Source Type: research