title: [Effects of simulated weightlessness on emotional behaviour in rats].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the influence of 14- day simulated weightlessness on emotional behaviour in rats.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixteen from twenty male SD rats were selected and assigned to a 2-group design: the control group and the tail suspension (TS) group (n = 8). The essay deployed typical methods for assessing emotional activity in the current, including food-intake and body weight variation, open field testing, sucrose preference testing and the evaluation of emotional arousal level to test emotional behavior.
  
  
  RESULTS
  1. After 14- day simulated weightlessness for rats, their food-intake and body weight increase were less than those in the control group. 2. The ability of movement reduced in rats, the number of locomotion was significantly lower than that in the control group (P < 0.05) and the frequency of self-grooming was significantly higher than that in the control group(P <0.01. 3. A higher level of emotionality in TS group was recorded. 4. Sucrose preference was not observed in TS group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It demonstrated depression, anxiety and nervous symptom occurred in the TS rats with a certain degree of nervous reaction but no anhedonia.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Shan-feng
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Yun-fang
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004644:Emotions; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D018474:Weightlessness Simulation / Q000523:psychology*