Psychophysiologic parameters of traumatic stress disorder in rats.
Nonhabituation of the acoustic startle response is used to identify rat subjects with altered alarm responses subsequent to trauma exposure. Subjects (n = 31) were exposed to 30 minutes of intermittent tail shock on 2 days followed by exposure to the apparatus on the third day. Twenty-nine percent of traumatized rats developed nonhabituation of startle over the subsequent 3 weeks of testing. No control rats developed nonhabituation of startle reactions over a similar time period. These data suggest that this system represents a more accurate representation of clinical PTSD than do other animal models.
Garrick
T
T
West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, California, USA.
Morrow
N
N
Eth
S
S
Marciano
D
D
Shalev
A
A
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013216:Reflex, Startle; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology