Present study has been carried out to assess whether early alterations of the behavioural structure may be detected in mice affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). To this purpose, both quantitative and T-pattern analysis (TPA) were used to analyse the behaviour of two groups of male, two months old mice, 18 MDX and 18 normal as control, tested in an open-field apparatus. T-pattern analysis is a multivariate technique able to reveal hidden structural features of behaviour and, in particular, its temporal characteristics. As to quantitative analyses, mean durations evidenced a significant increase of Walking, Modified Climbing and Rearing and a significant reduction of Immobile-Sniffing, Paw Licking and Immobility in MDX animals. A similar outcome was present in mean occurrences where the only difference was a significant result in Climbing rather than Immobile Sniffing. In addition, mean occurrences, evaluated for all the behavioural components, showed a significant increase for MDX mice. As to TPA, control mice performed 78 different T-patterns occurring 9500 times, whereas in MDX group 47 different T-patterns occurring 7082 times. Overall, MDX mice showed T-patterns of significantly shorter length. Finally, percent distribution of T-patterns encompassing each component of the behavioural repertoire showed significant differences between Control and MDX groups in all the behavioural components, except Climbing. Results suggest that the combined use of quantitative and temporal pattern analyses offers a useful approach to deeply investigate from a behavioural point of view pre-symptomatic stages of DMD in humans and related animal models as well.

目前的研究是为了评估是否可以在受杜氏肌营养不良症 (DMD) 影响的小鼠中检测到行为结构的早期改变。为此，使用定量和 T 型分析 (TPA) 来分析两组雄性、两个月大的小鼠的行为，其中 18 只 MDX 和 18 只正常作为对照，在露天设备中进行测试。T 型分析是一种多变量技术，能够揭示行为的隐藏结构特征，尤其是其时间特征。至于定量分析，平均持续时间证明 MDX 动物的行走、改良攀爬和饲养显着增加，不动嗅觉、舔爪子和不动的显着减少。在平均发生率中存在类似的结果，其中唯一的区别是攀爬而不是固定嗅探的显着结果。此外，对所有行为成分进行评估后，MDX 小鼠的平均发生率显着增加。至于TPA，对照小鼠进行了78种不同的T型，发生了9500次，而在MDX组中，47种不同的T型发生了7082次。总体而言，MDX 小鼠显示出明显更短长度的 T 模式。最后，包含行为曲目的每个组成部分的 T 模式的百分比分布显示，在所有行为组成部分中，Control 和 MDX 组之间存在显着差异，除了攀爬。