Identifying emotional adaptation: behavioural habituation to novelty and XXXX gene expression in two inbred @entity19 strains.

@entity19 @entity9830 @entity9829 @entity148
Normal @entity148 is an adaptive emotional response. However, when @entity148 appears to lack adaptive value, it might be defined as pathological. Adaptation in animals can be assessed for example by changes in behavioural responses over time, i.e. habituation. We hypothesize that non-adaptive @entity148 might be reflected by impaired habituation. To test our hypothesis, we repeatedly exposed male @entity19 from two inbred strains to a novel environment, the modified hole board. BALB/cJ @entity19 were found to be initially highly anxious, but subsequently habituated to the test environment. In contrast, 129P3/J @entity19 initially showed less @entity148 compared with the BALB/cJ @entity19 but no habituation in @entity148 was observed. Notably, @entity148 even increased during the experimental period. Complementary, 129P3/J @entity19 did not show habituation in other parameters such as locomotor and exploratory activity, whereas significant changes appeared in these behaviours in BALB/c @entity19 . Finally, the expression of the @entity9829 gene @entity9830 differed between the two strains in distinct brain areas, known to regulate the integration of emotional and cognitive processes. These results suggest that 129P3/J @entity19 might be a promising (neuro)-behavioural animal model for non-adaptive, i.e. pathological @entity148 .
