Marble Burying Mice

Marbles serve as means to measure the amount of digging.

Marble burying mice. It is based on the observation that rats and mice will bury either harmful or harmless objects in their bedding. When mice are placed in a novel cage a common response is to show increased digging behavior. Mice are individually housed in a cage filled with 5 cm of novel bedding for a 30 minute testing period. It has also been proposed that the test may have predictive validity for the screening of novel antidepressants 12 15 anxiolytics 15 16 and antipsychotics 17 19.

Marble burying is an animal model used in scientific research to depict anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder ocd behavior. The marble burying task can be used both as an indicator of obsessive compulsive like ocd behavior and or anxiety like behavior. In response to novel bedding environment mice exhibit digging behavior. The marble burying test is a useful model of both obsessive compulsive like ocd behavior and or anxiety like behavior.

While widely used there is significant controversy over the interpretation of its results. Marble burying the marble burying test is a useful model of neophobia 1 anxiety 1 7 and obsessive compulsive behavior 8 11. Mice with ocd like symptoms tend to engage in a high degree of repetitive behaviors including digging. The marble burying assay is able to detect phenotypes related to anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders.

When put in a cage with marbles mice with ocd like symptoms tend to engage in a high degree of repetitive behaviors including digging while mice with a high degree of anxiety tend to engage in a high degree of digging in.