Influence of procedural variables on rat inhibitory avoidance and escape behaviors generated by the elevated T-maze

摘要

A wealth of evidence indicates that changes in procedural parameters and/or environmental conditions may exert a remarkable influence on the basal expression of defensive behaviors in different animal tests of anxiety. The goal of the current study was to further investigate the influence of procedural factors upon inhibitory avoidance acquisition and escape expression of male Wistar rats exposed to the elevated T-maze. These responses have been related in terms of psychopathology to generalized anxiety and panic disorders, respectively. Our results showed that the expression of thesse behaviors is not affected by prior handling of the animals or by increasing the illumination level of the experimental room from 60 to 580 lx. They also showed that enhancing the number of avoidance trials from 3 to 6 favors the acquisition of this behavior. Under this condition, both diazepam (2 mg/kg) and clonazepam (1-4 mg/kg) caused anxiolytic effects, but only the latter benzodiazepine impaired escape expression, a panicolytic-like effect.