Pharmacologically distinctive behaviors other than burying marbles during the marble burying test in mice

In the marble burying test, we focused on the 5 distinctive behavioral parameters of mice other than burying marbles, i.e. digging, latency to the first digging, exploration around marbles, rearing and locomotor activity. Typical anxiolytics or antidepressants with different mechanisms, fluvoxamine (30 mg/kg, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), bupropion (60 mg/kg, noradrenaline and dopamine reuptake inhibitor), imipramine (60 mg/kg, tricyclic antidepressant) and diazepam (10 mg/kg, benzodiazepine) were used to examine whether these behavioral parameters are sensitive to pharmacological treatments. Each of the drugs demonstrated an individual action pattern on the 4 behavioral parameters (latency to the first digging, exploration around marbles, rearing and locomotor activity). On the other hand, all 4 drugs reduced burying marbles and digging, which were correlated with each other. These results suggest that the former 4 behavioral parameters are sensitive to pharmacological treatment and that pharmacological regulation mechanisms of them may be different from burying marbles and digging. They could be useful to identify the type of action of a test drug like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, noradrenaline and dopamine reuptake inhibitor, tricyclic antidepressant or benzodiazepine.