It is darkness and not light: Depression-like behaviors of diurnal unstriped Nile grass rats maintained under a short photoperiod schedule

Tal Ashkenazy-Frolinger, Noga Kronfeld-Schor, Jesse Juetten, Haim Einat*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

65 Scopus citations

Abstract

Circadian rhythms are strongly implicated in affective disorders and some recent studies suggested that diurnal rodents might be advantageous model animals for them. In line with this possibility, previous work demonstrated that in the diurnal fat sand rat, short photoperiod conditions result in depression- and anxiety-like behavioral phenotype that is relieved with bright light treatment. To further explore the possibility of using diurnal species as model animals for affective disorders, the present study examined the effects of short photoperiod schedule in an additional diurnal rodent, the unstriped Nile grass rat. Results indicate that 6 weeks short photoperiod (5 h light/19 h dark) regimen induced depression-like behavior in the forced swim test and the saccharin preference test compared with animals maintained in a neutral photoperiod regimen (12 h light/12 h dark). No effects were shown in the light/dark box model of anxiety or in a test for spontaneous activity. These results demonstrate that photoperiod manipulations in diurnal rodents induce affective-like behavioral change and support the possibility that diurnal rodents might provide a good potential as model animals for depression spectrum disorders.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)165-170
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Neuroscience Methods
Volume186
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 Feb 2010

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Institute of Mental HealthR01MH053433
University of Minnesota

    Keywords

    • Animal model
    • Arvicanthis niloticus
    • Behavior
    • Depression
    • Diurnal
    • Nocturnal

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