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Spontaneous Open-Field Behavior in Thiamin-Deficient Rats¹

Department of Neurology, Cornell University Medical College, Burke Rehabiliiation Center, 785 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, NY 10605

Open-field testing has proven useful for evaluation of the effects of drugs on behavior. We now present detailed methods for subdividing open-field behaviors into four categories:sniffing, grooming, resting, and staring. Upon initial exposure to the open field, sniffing is the predominant behavior. With habituation, sniffing and grooming decrease, and resting and staring increase. Treatment with a thiamin-deficient diet and pyrithiamin, a centrally acting thiamin antagonist, markedly increases staring behavior by day 3 of treatment. Animals that are treated with a thiamin-deficient diet and oxythiamin, a peripherally acting thiamin antagonist, do not have increased staring behavior. Therefore, increased staring behavior is an early behavioral change in central nervous system thiamin deficiency. Staring and other spontaneous open-field behaviors may be useful variables to monitor in thiamin deficiency and in other metabolic encephalopathies.

KEY WORDS: • thiamin deficiency • open-field behavior • pyrithiamin

¹ This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants NS 15125, NS 16997, the Winifred Masierson Burke Relief Foundation, the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company and the Will Rogers Institute.

Manuscript received 8 March 1982.