After the test period buried marbles were counted manually.
Marble burying autism.
A primary advantage of the marble burying and nestlet shredding tests is the fact that each depends on natural and spontaneous behaviors of mice that can be quantified after test completion allowing a single investigator to set up an experiment and then remain outside of the testing room until sessions end.
Utilizing well characterized and validated approaches such as marble burying and nestlet shredding compulsive like behaviors can be documented accurately in mice as models of human obsessive compulsive disorder and autism spectrum disorder.
Mice were placed individually in an open arena 51 5 cm by 51 5 cm by 31 cm containing fresh bedding i e sawdust 5 cm deep with 20 clean marbles prearranged in a 5 by 4 grid.
For the repetitive domain the t maze spontaneous alternation test and marble burying test are described.
It has been suggested as a screening test for anxiolytic response but more recently has been proposed as modeling repetitive behaviors characteristic of mental disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder ocd or autism spectrum disorder asd thomas et al.
Marble burying is a repetitive digging behavior that is perseverative and resistant to changes based on familiarity.
It has also been proposed that the test may have predictive validity for the screening of novel antidepressants 12 15 anxiolytics 15 16 and antipsychotics 17 19.
Marble burying is an animal model used in scientific research to depict anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder ocd behavior.
It is based on the observation that rats and mice will bury either harmful or harmless objects in their bedding.
In this unit behavioral tests are described that are relevant to the domains affected in asd.
While widely used there is significant controversy over the interpretation of its results.
The marble burying test protocol described below is modiļ¬ed from deacon 2006 and angoa perez kane briggs francescutti kuhn 2013.
Mice were allowed to bury the marbles for 20 min.
Gene editing eases the frantic burying of marbles bottom right in a mouse model of fragile x syndrome bottom left.
Rodents naturally exhibit a large number of behaviors that can be linked to similar behaviors in human.
The marble burying test occurred 8 days following the grooming test to ensure there were no potential residual effects from the initial drug treatment birdsall et al 1978.
Marble burying the marble burying test is a useful model of neophobia 1 anxiety 1 7 and obsessive compulsive behavior 8 11.
