Laboratory of Behavioral Physiology, Human Physiology Section "Giuseppe Pagano", Department of Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics (BIND), University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Malta, Msida, Malta.
CNS Neurosci Ther. 2024 Mar;30(3):e14443. doi: 10.1111/cns.14443. Epub 2023 Sep 2.
The Genetic Absence Epilepsy Rats from Strasbourg (GAERS) are an inbred polygenic model of childhood absence epilepsy (CAE), which, as their non-epileptic control (NEC) rats, are derived from Wistar rats. While the validity of GAERS in reproducing absence seizures is well established, its use as a model for CAE psychiatric comorbidities has been subject to conflicting findings. Differences in colonies, experimental procedures, and the use of diverse controls from different breeders may account for these disparities. Therefore, in this study, we compared GAERS, NEC, and Wistar bred in the same animal facility with commercially available Wistar (Cm Wistar) as a third control.
We performed hole board (HB) and elevated plus maze (EPM) tests that were analyzed with standard quantitative and T-pattern analysis in male, age-matched Cm Wistar and GAERS, NEC, and Wistar, bred under the same conditions, to rule out the influence of different housing factors and provide extra information on the structure of anxiety-like behavior of GAERS rats.
Quantitative analysis showed that GAERS and NEC had similar low anxiety-like behavior when compared to Cm Wistar but not to Wistar rats, although a higher hole-focused exploration was revealed in NEC. T-pattern analysis showed that GAERS, NEC, and Wistar had a similar anxiety status, whereas GAERS and NEC exhibited major differences with Cm Wistar but not Wistar rats. EPM results indicated that GAERS and NEC also have similar low anxiety compared to Cm Wistar and/or Wistar rats. Nevertheless, the analysis of the T-pattern containing open-arm entry showed GAERS and Wistar to be less anxious than NEC and Cm Wistar rats.
To summarize, comorbid anxiety may not be present in male GAERS rats. This study also highlighted the importance of including a control Wistar group bred under the same conditions when evaluating their behavior, as using Wistar rats from commercial breeders can lead to misleading results.
斯特拉斯堡遗传性癫痫大鼠（GAERS）是一种内源性多基因儿童失神癫痫（CAE）模型，与非癫痫对照（NEC）大鼠一样，均源自 Wistar 大鼠。虽然 GAERS 重现失神发作的有效性已得到充分证实，但将其用作 CAE 精神共病模型的有效性一直存在争议。不同品系、实验程序以及使用不同来源的不同品系的对照大鼠可能是造成这些差异的原因。因此，在这项研究中，我们将在同一动物设施中饲养的 GAERS、NEC 和 Wistar 大鼠与商业可得的 Wistar（Cm Wistar）大鼠进行比较，并将其作为第三个对照。
我们进行了洞板（HB）和高架十字迷宫（EPM）测试，并对来自同一动物设施、相同条件下饲养的雄性、年龄匹配的 Cm Wistar 和 GAERS、NEC 和 Wistar 大鼠进行了标准的定量和 T 模式分析，以排除不同饲养因素的影响，并提供 GAERS 大鼠焦虑样行为结构的额外信息。
定量分析表明，与 Cm Wistar 大鼠相比，GAERS 和 NEC 大鼠具有相似的低焦虑样行为，但与 Wistar 大鼠不同，尽管 NEC 大鼠的洞焦点探索更高。T 模式分析表明，GAERS、NEC 和 Wistar 大鼠具有相似的焦虑状态，而 GAERS 和 NEC 大鼠与 Cm Wistar 大鼠存在显著差异，但与 Wistar 大鼠没有差异。EPM 结果表明，与 Cm Wistar 和/或 Wistar 大鼠相比，GAERS 和 NEC 大鼠也具有相似的低焦虑。然而，对包含进入开放臂的 T 模式的分析表明，GAERS 和 Wistar 大鼠的焦虑程度低于 NEC 和 Cm Wistar 大鼠。
总之，雄性 GAERS 大鼠可能不存在共患焦虑。本研究还强调了在评估其行为时，纳入相同条件下饲养的 Wistar 对照组的重要性，因为使用商业来源的 Wistar 大鼠可能会导致误导性结果。
