Marble burying is normally used as a model for both anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Mice are placed individually in clean mouse cages containing approximately 6cm of hard wood bedding and twenty black marbles placed in spaced rows of 5 for 30 min. Distance traveled during the test is captured by overhead cameras and quantified using Video Tracker Software (ViewPoint Life Sciences, France). After termination of the test, the mice are removed from the cage, and the number of buried marbles is counted. A marble is considered buried if it is pushed at least two-thirds into the bedding.
This test can be used to investigate pharmacological mechanisms through agonist/antagonist studies. It is also a useful test for yielding surrogate pharmacokinetic information on the duration of action of a drug.
Mice pretreated antidepressants of various classes show less marble-burying ability compared to the control mice.
Desipramine and Paroxetine decrease marble-burying behavior. Whereas paroxetine does not impact locomotor activity, desipramine shows a dose-dependent decrease in locomotion.
