Rat self-grooming and its relationships with anxiety, dearousal and perseveration: Evidence for a self-grooming trait

Publication date: Available online 19 June 2019Source: Physiology & BehaviorAuthor(s): Celio Estanislau, André W.N. Veloso, Guilherme B. Filgueiras, Taimon P. Maio, Maria L.C. Dal-Cól, Daniel C. Cunha, Rodrigo Klein, Lucas F. Carmona, Alberto Fernández-TeruelAbstractRodent self-grooming is a behavior that, besides its cleaning function, can be led by arousing experiences. A putative trait-like nature of this behavior was studied. With the aim of providing information about how grooming behavior can reflect different behavioral processes, an individual differences approach was adopted. Fifty nine male Wistar-derived rats were submitted to five 30-min long behavioral tests. These tests were selected based on the behavioral processes they entangle. Elevated plus-maze (EPM): anxiety, exploration/habituation, arousal/dearousal; Marble burying (MB): active/passive coping; Operant extinction (EXT): frustration, perseveration; Conditioned fear context (CFC): fearfulness, active/passive coping; Novelty after restraint (NAR): stress induced behavior. Orthogonal (Varimax) factor analyses were performed within each test in order to select the most representative measures. To the selected variables from all tests a Direct Oblimin factor analysis was applied. A three factor solution was found after the application of the Cattell's scree test. This solution accounted for 44.2% of the variance. By looking at the loading variables, some conclusions could be drawn. On Factor 1 loaded time s...
Source: Physiology and Behavior - Category: Physiology Source Type: research
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