title: Self-motivated and stress-response performance assays in mice are age-dependent.
abstract: Chronic health conditions of the elderly lead to limitations in physical activity with disability, anxiety, and increased need for medical care and assisted living conditions. Physical performance tests are used to screen for pending loss of mobility and can serve as endpoints to monitor the effectiveness of intervention measures. Since limited mobility is associated with the physical and mental health of a person, evaluation of this in preclinical aging studies in mice will provide a translational approach for testing new intervention strategies. We assessed physiological parameters in 4, 12, 20 and 28month old C57BL/6 and CB6F1 male mice using a rotating rod, a free running wheel, and a photo beam activity field, designed to determine changes in coordinated walking ability, self-motivated running distance, and anxiety response to a novel environment, respectively. Older mice showed decreased coordinated walking times and decreased running distances, predictive of physical performance ability and motivation in the elderly. Changes in both lateral and vertical movements were observed in a novel cage environment suggesting different levels of anxiety. Because the genetic background of the two mouse strains influenced test results in an age-dependent manner, it is imperative to recognize that diverse genetic backgrounds in mice may yield different data in preclinical studies and would need to be interpreted individually for translational applications.
authors.affiliation: University of Washington, Department of Comparative Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA. Electronic address: xuange@uw.edu.
authors.forename: Xuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: University of Washington, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Marcia A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ciol
authors.affiliation: University of Washington, Department of Comparative Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pettan-Brewer
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore.
authors.forename: Jorming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Goh
authors.affiliation: University of Washington, Department of Pathology, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rabinovitch
authors.affiliation: University of Washington, Department of Comparative Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA; University of Washington, Department of Pathology, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Warren
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ladiges
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009042:Motivation; D010805:Physical Conditioning, Animal; D012420:Running; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D016138:Walking
keywords: Anxiety; Coordinated walking ability; Mouse model of aging; Novel environment response; Self-motivated running