BEHAVIOR OF THE ROMAN VERH HIGH-AVOIDANCE AND LOW-AVOIDANCE RAT LINESIN ANXIETY TESTS - RELATIONSHIP WITH DEFECATION AND SELF-GROOMING

The Swiss sublines of Roman high- and low-avoidance (RHA/Verh and RLA/ Verh) rats have been selected and bred for rapid (RHA/Verh) vs. extrem ely poor (RLA/Verh) acquisition of two-way active avoidance. Behaviora l and physiological measures of emotionality, or reactivity to stress, appear to be among the most prominent characteristics differentiating both rat lines. The present study shows that RLA/Verh rats are more s ensitive, as compared to their RHA/Verh counterparts, to the conflict involved in the shock-induced suppression of drinking paradigm, as wel l as in a hyponeophagia test. RLA/Verh rats also showed higher defecat ion values which were significantly correlated with the main hyponeoph agia test variables. Likewise, self-grooming was more frequent in RLA/ Verh rats than in their RHA/Verh counterparts and showed significant c orrelations with conflict-related behaviors (i.e., latency to start ea ting and time spent eating) from the hyponeophagia test. These results give additional support to the contention that RLA/Verh rats present higher anxiety (emotionality) than their RHA/Verh counterparts.