EVALUATING ACTIVITY AND EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY IN A HEXAGONAL TUNNEL MAZE - CORRELATIONAL AND FACTORIAL ANALYSIS FROM A STUDY WITH THE ROMAN-VERH RAT LINES

Two hundred forty 30-day-old Roman high- and low-avoidance (RHA/Verh a nd RLA/Verh) rats (divided equally by line and gender) which had recei ved several peri- and/or postnatal treatments, forming two factorial [ line X sex X treatment(s)] experimental designs, were tested in a hexa gonal tunnel maze including a brightly illuminated central arena. The present study reports the results of correlational and factorial (prin cipal-components) analyses performed on the data from those two experi mental constituencies. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the va lidity of the hexagonal tunnel maze for testing emotionality, and ther efore, the following measures were included in the analysis: entries i nto the central illuminated arena, total activity during testing, defe cation during testing, and defecation during handling and weighing aft er testing. An overall pattern of negative correlations (or opposite l oadings in the principal-components analyses) between defecation (espe cially during maze testing) and entries into the illuminated center an d activity was found, thus giving support to the validity of entries i nto the illuminated center as being indicative of emotional reactivity .