Olson E B, Morgan W P
Life Sci. 1982 Jun 14;30(24):2095-2100. doi: 10.1016/0024-3205(82)90451-9.
Randomly selected adult, male, Sprague-Dawley rats exhibit a range of behaviors in an open field. Exploration without defecation or urination is interpreted as stable behavior. On the basis of their open field behavior we selected the five most "emotional" and five most "stable" rats from two separate groups of thirty rats. Norepinephrine (NE), dopamine (DA), and serotonin (5HT) levels were determined in brains from these ten "emotional" and ten "stable" rats. The NE levels of "emotional" rats were elevated about 60 ng/g relative to the "stable" rats. There was no difference in DA levels, but there appeared to be a trend toward elevation of 5HT levels in the "emotional" rats. These findings directly support the hypothesis that elevated central nervous system norepinephrine levels may reflect a factor which contributes to emotionality in the rat, and suggest that brain norepinephrine levels may be a biochemical mechanism which influences performance as seen with the commonly used open field behavioral test of emotionality.
随机选取的成年雄性斯普拉格-道利大鼠在旷场中表现出一系列行为。无排便或排尿的探索行为被解释为稳定行为。基于它们在旷场中的行为，我们从两组各30只大鼠中分别挑选出5只最“情绪化”和5只最“稳定”的大鼠。测定了这10只“情绪化”大鼠和10只“稳定”大鼠大脑中的去甲肾上腺素（NE）、多巴胺（DA）和5-羟色胺（5HT）水平。“情绪化”大鼠的NE水平相对于“稳定”大鼠升高了约60纳克/克。DA水平没有差异，但“情绪化”大鼠的5HT水平似乎有升高趋势。这些发现直接支持了这样的假说，即中枢神经系统去甲肾上腺素水平升高可能反映了一个导致大鼠情绪化的因素，并表明大脑去甲肾上腺素水平可能是一种生化机制，它影响了在常用的旷场情绪行为测试中所观察到的表现。
