ReviewPharmacology research & perspectives2016
Preclinical animal anxiety research - flaws and prejudices.
Review in Pharmacology research & perspectives, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 125 citations in OpenAlex.
- What Animal Models Can Tell Us About Long-Term Psychiatric Symptoms in Sepsis Survivors: a Systematic Review.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2021Pooled it
- Auditory conditioned fear elicits anxiety-like behavior and differential neuronal remodeling in the prelimbic and infralimbic cortex of rats.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- A narrative review of behavioral tests across mammalian models in neuroscience.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2026Review
- Conspecific Presence Promotes Social Buffering, Restores Social Reward, and Enhances Spatial Navigation in a Ketamine-Induced Model of Schizophrenia in Mice.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Acute or Chronic β-Caryophyllene Systemic Administration in Healthy Adult Male Mice Does Not Modulate Anxiety-Like Extinction Behavior Induced by Subsequent Re-Exposure to 3D Maze.Fundamental & clinical pharmacology · 2025Article
- Dendritic spine degeneration is associated with age-related decline in recognition and spatial memory in male mice.Brain structure & function · 2025Article
- Anxiolytic-like Effect Characterization of Essential Oil from Local Lavender Cultivation.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Pleiotropic Effects ofBiomolecules · 2025Review
- Hippocampal damage disrupts the latent decision-making processes underlying approach-avoidance conflict processing in humans.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Exposure to the herbicide glyphosate leads to inappropriate threat responses and alters gut microbial composition.Frontiers in toxicology · 2025Article
- Evidence of HARKing in mouse behavioural tests of anxiety.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Neuroglobin overexpression in cerebellar neurons of Harlequin mice improves mitochondrial homeostasis and reduces ataxic behavior.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2024Article
- Subregion specific neuroadaptations in the female rat striatum during acute and protracted withdrawal from nicotine.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2024Article
- Nature and nurture: Comparing mouse behavior in classic versus revised anxiety-like and social behavioral assays in genetically or environmentally defined groups.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2023Article
- Improving Translational Relevance in Preclinical Psychopharmacology (iTRIPP).Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Intrathecal AAV9/AP4M1 gene therapy for hereditary spastic paraplegia 50 shows safety and efficacy in preclinical studies.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2023Article
- Seminatural environments for rodent behavioral testing: a representative design improving animal welfare and enhancing replicability.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Measuring anxiety-like behavior in a mouse model of mTBI: Assessment in standard and home cage assays.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- How Well Do Rodent Models of Parkinson's Disease Recapitulate Early Non-Motor Phenotypes? A Systematic Review.Biomedicines · 2022Review
- The Influence of Unlimited Sucrose Intake on Body Weight and Behavior-Findings from a Mouse Model.Brain sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The current tests of anxiety in mice and rats used in preclinical research include the elevated plus-maze (EPM) or zero-maze (EZM), the light/dark box (LDB), and the open-field (OF). They are currently very popular, and despite their poor achievements, they continue to exert considerable constraints on the development of novel approaches. Hence, a novel anxiety test needs to be compared with these traditional tests, and assessed against various factors that were identified as a source of their inconsistent and contradictory results. These constraints are very costly, and they are in most cases useless as they originate from flawed methodologies. In the present report, we argue that the EPM or EZM, LDB, and OF do not provide unequivocal measures of anxiety; that there is no evidence of motivation conflict involved in these tests. They can be considered at best, tests of natural preference for unlit and/or enclosed spaces. We also argued that pharmacological validation of a behavioral test is an inappropriate approach; it stems from the confusion of animal models of human behavior with animal models of pathophysiology. A behavioral test is developed to detect not to produce symptoms, and a drug is used to validate an identified physiological target. In order to overcome the major methodological flaws in animal anxiety studies, we proposed an open space anxiety test, a 3D maze, which is described here with highlights of its various advantages over to the traditional tests.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.