Objective: To compare the biological characteristics of several different stress methods to establish an anxiety rat model from different time points, and to provide an experimental basis for finding the most suitable modeling method.
Methods: 70 rats were randomly divided into normal group, empty bottle stress group, chronic emotional stress (CES) group, restraint stress group for 3 hours, restraint stress group for 6 hours, and modeled respectively. On the 7th, 14th, and 21st days of the experiment, the elevated plus maze and scenario fear test were used to measure the anxiety-like behaviors of the rats, the open field test was used to investigate the anxiety or depression-like behaviors of the rats, and the forced swimming test was used to measure the depression-like behaviors of the rats. The content of 5-HT and DA in rat hippocampus was detected by Elisa kit.
Results: The anxiety-like behavior test results showed that from the 14th day, the rats in the empty bottle stress group, the CES group, and the restraint stress group for 6 h began to produce anxiety-like behaviors, and the anxiety-like behaviors became more and more obvious after that. The results of the forced swimming test It showed that the immobility time of the rats in the 6-h restraint group increased significantly from the 7th day (P<0.05). At the same time, compared with normal rats, the levels of 5-HT and DA in the hippocampus of the rats in the empty bottle stress group and the CES group increased significantly from the 14th day (P<0.05 or P<0.01).
Conclusion: In the above several anxiety models, the anxiety-like behavior of restraint stress for 3 hours is not obvious; the restraint stress for 6 hours may show depression-like behavior due to excessive stress time. Empty bottle stress and CES can successfully establish an anxiety rat model, and their anxiety behaviors are different to some extent. The corresponding model method can be selected according to different experimental purposes.