Murison R, Skjerve A
Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway.
Acta Physiol Hung. 1992;80(1-4):127-33.
Individual rats differ amongst themselves with respect to both behavior and the extent of stress-induced gastric ulceration, even though they have been treated identically, are from the same stock, age, etc. The relationship between behavior and ulcer susceptibility is of interest in its own right, and is reminiscent of the extensive body of literature on personality characteristics and disease risk in humans. In the Sprague-Dawley rat, we have found that animals react differentially to the introduction of new stimuli in a previously learned Lashley-maze, and that the increase in latency is negatively related to attack frequency in a classic intruder test. Furthermore, we have found a negative correlation between attack latency in the intruder test and the amount of gastric ulceration induced by restraint-in-water stress. We have further found highly significant relationships between the responses of otherwise untreated animals to a simple startle test and the extent of gastric ulceration induced by restraint-in water stress. We believe that greater notice should be taken of the individual animal's behavioral profile for three reasons. First, prior behavioral screening may be a useful method for reducing error variance. Second, physiological and neuroendocrinological differences between high susceptible and low susceptible individuals are of interest in understanding the psychobiology of stress ulcerations both in animals and humans. Finally, an understanding of the etiology of these individual differences may cast light on links between behavior patterns and stress pathology.
