Thomas Alexia, Burant April, Bui Nghiem, Graham Deanna, Yuva-Paylor Lisa A, Paylor Richard
Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2009 Jun;204(2):361-73. doi: 10.1007/s00213-009-1466-y. Epub 2009 Feb 3.
An increasing number of investigators utilize the marble-burying assay despite the paucity of information available regarding what underlies the behavior.
We tested the possibility that a genetic component underlies marble burying in mice and if there is a genetic correlation with other anxiety-like traits. Since findings reported in the literature indicate that marble-burying behavior reflects an anxiety-like response, we explored the assumption that the novel nature of a marble induces this anxiety. Finally, we investigated how the natural response of a mouse to dig relates to the marble-burying phenomenon.
We examined ten different inbred mouse strains to determine if marble-burying behavior is genetically regulated and correlated with anxiety-like traits in two other assays. We employed multiple variants of the "traditional" marble-burying assay to address how issues such as the novelty of marbles and digging behavior contribute to marble burying.
Marble-burying behavior varied across strain and did not correlate with anxiety measures in other assays. Multiple tests conducted to reduce the novelty of marbles failed to alter burying behavior. Additionally, digging behavior correlated with marble burying, and the presence of marbles did not significantly impact the digging response.
Our results indicate that mouse marble burying is genetically regulated, not correlated with other anxiety-like traits, not stimulated by novelty, and is a repetitive behavior that persists/perseveres with little change across multiple exposures. Marble burying is related to digging behavior and may in fact be more appropriately considered as an indicative measure of repetitive digging.
尽管关于这种行为背后的机制信息匮乏，但越来越多的研究人员采用大理石掩埋实验。
我们测试了小鼠大理石掩埋行为存在遗传成分的可能性，以及它与其他焦虑样行为特征是否存在遗传相关性。由于文献报道的结果表明大理石掩埋行为反映了一种焦虑样反应，我们探讨了大理石的新奇性引发这种焦虑的假设。最后，我们研究了小鼠挖掘的自然反应与大理石掩埋现象之间的关系。
我们检查了十种不同的近交系小鼠品系，以确定大理石掩埋行为是否受基因调控，以及在另外两种实验中是否与焦虑样行为特征相关。我们采用了“传统”大理石掩埋实验的多种变体，以解决诸如大理石的新奇性和挖掘行为等问题如何影响大理石掩埋。
大理石掩埋行为因品系而异，且与其他实验中的焦虑测量指标无关。为降低大理石新奇性而进行的多次测试未能改变掩埋行为。此外，挖掘行为与大理石掩埋相关，大理石的存在并未显著影响挖掘反应。
我们的结果表明，小鼠大理石掩埋行为受基因调控，与其他焦虑样行为特征无关，不受新奇性刺激，是一种重复性行为，在多次暴露中几乎没有变化地持续存在。大理石掩埋与挖掘行为有关，实际上可能更适合被视为重复性挖掘的一种指示性测量方法。
