Detection and identification of animal emotionality-exposing stress incubation in Mice

Abstract

Despite the long history and wide use of standard behavioral tests to measure emotion in laboratory animals, the approach and logic have been heavily criticized. Here we solved the fundamental logical and quantitative problems by a proof-of-principle testing approach with fine-scale behavioral analysis. The reported approach was able to detect informative behavioral details and further prove stress incubation after acute psychological trauma in mice. Standard analyses, in contrast, gave inconclusive results. This approach provides a technical advance allowing exploration of a wide range of potential measurements using standard behavioral tests, and a more solid basis supporting the concluded animal emotionality.