Measures of anxiety in behavioural tests remain largely unclear even decades after their establishment. Differences in the severity of anxiety measured by anxiety tests is an important issue that must be addressed. To test the hypothesis that the addition of light as an aversive stimulus will elicit a difference in behaviour between aged and young animals, we compared the responses of aged and young animals in the home cage emergence test (HCET) and elevated plus maze (EPM), in high aversive bright light and low aversive dim light conditions. In the HCET, our results demonstrated that young animals escaped with shorter latency and greater frequency than aged animals in both bright and dim light conditions, indicating that young animals display greater exploratory tendencies than aged animals. In the EPM, bright light conditions induced anxiogenic effects in both age groups. Interestingly, two-way ANOVA showed a significant interaction effect of age and light on the number of entries into the open arms of the EPM as well as frequency of escape in the HCET. These results show that the addition of light as an aversive stimulus in the EPM and HCET produced different responses in aged versus young animals in each test. In conclusion, significant interactions between age and light affected aged and young animals differently in the HCET and EPM, indicating that the two tests measure different aspects of anxiety.

中文翻译：

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Sprague-Dawley幼鼠和年老鼠在厌恶和非厌恶条件下的焦虑行为反应。

即使在行为测试建立几十年后，对行为测试中焦虑程度的测量仍然不清楚。通过焦虑测试测得的焦虑严重程度差异是必须解决的重要问题。为了检验假说，添加光作为一种厌恶刺激会引起老年和幼年动物行为上的差异，我们比较了笼养出笼试验（HCET）和高架迷宫（EPM）中老年和幼年动物的反应，在高厌恶性强光和低厌恶性弱光条件下。在HCET中，我们的结果表明，在强光和暗光条件下，年幼的动物逃脱的潜伏期短，频率也比年长的动物大，这表明年幼的动物比年长的动物表现出更大的探索倾向。在EPM中，在两个年龄段，强光条件均会引起焦虑。有趣的是，双向方差分析显示年龄和光照对进入EPM开放臂的次数以及HCET中的逃逸频率具有显着的交互作用。这些结果表明，在每项测试中，在EPM和HCET中添加光作为一种厌恶刺激物，对年长动物和年幼动物产生了不同的反应。总之，在HCET和EPM中，年龄与光照影响的成年和幼小动物之间的显着相互作用不同，表明这两种测试测量了焦虑的不同方面。这些结果表明，在每项测试中，在EPM和HCET中添加光作为一种厌恶刺激物，对年长动物和年幼动物产生了不同的反应。总之，在HCET和EPM中，年龄与光照影响的成年和幼小动物之间的显着相互作用不同，表明这两种测试测量了焦虑的不同方面。这些结果表明，在每项测试中，在EPM和HCET中添加光作为一种厌恶刺激物，对年长动物和年幼动物产生了不同的反应。总之，在HCET和EPM中，年龄与光照影响的成年和幼小动物之间的显着相互作用不同，表明这两种测试测量了焦虑的不同方面。