Sa. Balogh et al., A behavioral and neuroanatomical assessment of an inbred substrain of 129 mice with behavioral comparisons to C57BL/6J mice, BRAIN RES, 836(1-2), 1999, pp. 38-48
The inbred 129 substrains have been characterized as poor learners that dis
play hypoplasia of the corpus callosum. However, they are used extensively
as a sourer of embryonic stem (ES) cells for creating mice carrying altered
copies of a targeted gene ('knockout mice'). The present research investig
ated callosal agenesis and behavior in the 129/SvEvTac substrain and compar
ed their behavior to that of C57BL/6J mice. in addition, the degree to whic
h callosal agenesis affected behavior was assessed. Nearly 80% of 129/SvEvT
ac mice in the current sample exhibited callosal hypoplasia, although this
was not subsequently found to be associated with any measure of cognition.
They learned the Morris maze and a non-spatial pattern discrimination task,
though at a level inferior to C57BL/6J mice. They were unable to learn shu
ttlebox avoidance or the Lashley III maze. The only measure on which they p
erformed better than C57BL/6J mice was a simple water escape task. Thus, 12
9/SvEvTac mice, in addition to displaying aberrant neuroanatomy, perform po
orly on many behavioral tasks, resulting in potential interpretational diff
iculties. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.