A proposal for refining the forced swim test in Swiss mice.

The forced swim test (FST) is a preclinical test to the screening of antidepressants based on rats or mice behaviours, which is also sensitive to stimulants of motor activity. This work standardised and validated a method to register the active and passive behaviours of Swiss mice during the FST in order to strength the specificity of the test. Adult male Swiss mice were subjected to the FST for 6 min without any treatment or after intraperitoneal injection of saline (0.

Effects of social isolation and enriched environment on behavior of adult Swiss mice do not require hippocampal neurogenesis.

Housing conditions are important determinants of animal behavior. Their impact on behavioral output depends on the behavior of interest, species, strain, and age of the animal evaluated. In the present study, male Swiss mice reared from weaning up to 8 weeks in social isolation (SI8), in enriched environment (EE8) or in standard environment (SE8) were evaluated in the elevated plus-maze (EPM), open-field (OFT) and tail-suspension (TST) tests.