Yankelevitch-Yahav Roni, Franko Motty, Huly Avrham, Doron Ravid
School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University; School of Behavioral Sciences, Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo.
School of Behavioral Sciences, Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo.
J Vis Exp. 2015 Mar 2(97):52587. doi: 10.3791/52587.
The goal of the present protocol is to describe the forced swim test (FST), which is one of the most commonly used assays for the study of depressive-like behavior in rodents. The FST is based on the assumption that when placing an animal in a container filled with water, it will first make efforts to escape but eventually will exhibit immobility that may be considered to reflect a measure of behavioral despair. This test has been extensively used because it involves the exposure of the animals to stress, which was shown to have a role in the tendency for major depression. Additionally, the FST has been shown to share some of the factors that are influenced or altered by depression in humans, including changes in food consumption, sleep abnormalities and drug-withdrawal-induced anhedonia. The main advantages of this procedure are that it is relatively easy to perform and that its results are easily and quickly analyzed. Moreover, its sensitivity to a broad range of antidepressant drugs that makes it a suitable screening test is one of the most important features leading to its high predictive validity. Despite its appeal, this model has a number of disadvantages. First, the issue of chronic augmentation is problematic in this test because in real life patients need to be treated for at least several weeks before they experience any relief from their symptoms. Last, due to the aversiveness of the FST, it is important to take into account possible influences it might have on brain structure/function if brain analyses are to be carried out following this procedure.
本实验方案的目的是描述强迫游泳试验（FST），这是研究啮齿动物抑郁样行为最常用的试验之一。FST基于这样一种假设：当将动物放入装满水的容器中时，它首先会努力逃脱，但最终会表现出不动，这可能被认为反映了一种行为绝望的程度。该试验已被广泛应用，因为它涉及让动物暴露于应激状态，而应激被证明在重度抑郁症的发病倾向中起作用。此外，FST已被证明与人类抑郁症中一些受影响或改变的因素有共同之处，包括食物消耗的变化、睡眠异常以及药物戒断引起的快感缺失。该程序的主要优点是相对容易实施，且结果易于快速分析。此外，它对多种抗抑郁药物敏感，使其成为一种合适的筛选试验，这是导致其具有高预测效度的最重要特征之一。尽管有其吸引力，但该模型也有一些缺点。首先，在这个试验中慢性增强问题很棘手，因为在现实生活中患者需要接受至少几周的治疗才能从症状中得到缓解。最后，由于FST的厌恶性，如果在此程序后进行脑分析，重要的是要考虑到它可能对脑结构/功能产生的潜在影响。
