Hyponeophagia: a measure of anxiety in the mouse.

Before the present day, when fast-acting and potent rodenticides such as alpha-chloralose were not yet in use, the work of pest controllers was often hampered by a phenomenon known as "bait shyness". Mice and rats cannot vomit, due to the tightness of the cardiac sphincter of the stomach, so to overcome the problem of potential food toxicity they have evolved a strategy of first ingesting only very small amounts of novel substances. The amounts ingested then gradually increase until the animal has determined whether the substance is safe and nutritious.

Overexpression of IL-1beta by adenoviral-mediated gene transfer in the rat brain causes a prolonged hepatic chemokine response, axonal injury and the suppression of spontaneous behaviour.

Acute brain injury induces early and transient hepatic expression of chemokines, which amplify the injury response and give rise to movement of leukocytes into the blood and subsequently the brain and liver. Here, we sought to determine whether an ongoing injury stimulus within the brain would continue to drive the hepatic chemokine response and how it impacts on behaviour and CNS integrity. We generated chronic IL-1beta expression in rat brain by adenoviral-mediated gene transfer, which resulted in chronic leukocyte recruitment, axonal injury and prolonged depression of spontaneous behaviour.