Early Behavioral Development in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat: A Comparison With the Wistar-Kyoto and Sprague-Dawley Strains

The spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) is often used as a model for childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). To investigate behavioral maturation in SHR, body weight, age at eye opening, and performance in several behavioral tasks in male and female SHR, Wistar-Kyoto (WKY), and S...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavioral neuroscience 2003-04, Vol.117 (2), p.263-270
Main Authors: Ferguson, Sherry A, Gray, Erika P, Cada, Amy M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activity levels. Psychomotricity
Age Factors
Animal
Animal behavior
Animal Models
Animal Strain Differences
Animals
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Body Weight
Exploratory Behavior - physiology
Eye
Female
Forelimb - physiology
Fractures, Open
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Hypertension
Male
Miscellaneous
Motor Development
Neurology
Pregnancy
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor activities
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Rats
Rats, Inbred SHR
Rats, Inbred WKY
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Reaction Time - physiology
Reflex
Rodents
Species Specificity
Walking - physiology
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Summary:The spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) is often used as a model for childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). To investigate behavioral maturation in SHR, body weight, age at eye opening, and performance in several behavioral tasks in male and female SHR, Wistar-Kyoto (WKY), and Sprague-Dawley rats were compared. SHRs were slower in performing the righting reflex on PND 4 and negative geotaxis compared with WKY and Sprague-Dawley. Both SHR and WKY were delayed relative to Sprague-Dawley in eye opening and beam walking. Rotarod performance was comparable in the 3 strains. Males were faster to right themselves than females, but there were no other significant sex differences nor Sex × Strain interactions. Delayed development in SHR may be related to a maturational delay observed in children with ADHD. Research assessing early behaviors in SHR, WKY, and other strains will help determine the most appropriate model for childhood ADHD and may help predict later behavioral dysfunction.
ISSN:0735-7044
1939-0084
DOI:10.1037/0735-7044.117.2.263