Gyertyán I.
Department of Pharmacology, EGIS Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Budapest, POB 100, Hungary, H-1475.
Behav Pharmacol. 1995 Jan;6(1):24-31.
Marble burying has been suggested as a model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) based on the fact that specific serotonin reuptake inhibitors selectively influenced this response. Studying the behaviour we observed that mice also exhibited intense digging activity in the absence of glass marbles. This digging activity showed no habituation either between sessions or within a session, and it could be inhibited by psychotropic drugs in a manner similar to the marble burying response. On the basis of the results a methodological and a theoretical conclusion can be drawn. First, it is concluded that glass marbles themselves do not necessarily provide a fear-provoking stimulus but they serve rather as a convenient means of measuring the intensity of digging activity. Alternative ways of measuring the intensity of digging gave high correlations with marble burying. Second, the behaviour observed is not burying (the marbles) but digging/burrowing (the bedding material), which is elicited by the presence of a "diggable" ground. The putative compulsive nature of this behaviour may add support to the hypothesis that marble burying may be a model of OCD.
基于特定血清素再摄取抑制剂能选择性影响这种反应这一事实，大理石掩埋已被提议作为强迫症（OCD）的一种模型。在研究这种行为时，我们观察到小鼠在没有玻璃弹珠的情况下也会表现出强烈的挖掘活动。这种挖掘活动在不同实验时段之间或同一实验时段内均未出现习惯化，并且它能被精神药物以类似于大理石掩埋反应的方式所抑制。基于这些结果，可以得出一个方法学上的结论和一个理论上的结论。首先，得出的结论是玻璃弹珠本身不一定提供引发恐惧的刺激，而是它们更像是一种测量挖掘活动强度的便利手段。测量挖掘强度的其他方法与大理石掩埋具有高度相关性。其次，观察到的行为不是掩埋（弹珠），而是挖掘/打洞（垫料），这是由存在“可挖掘”的地面所引发的。这种行为假定的强迫性质可能为大理石掩埋可能是强迫症模型这一假说提供支持。
