Open-space forced swim model of depression for mice.

This protocol describes a simplified method for inducing a chronic depression-like state in mice that is based on the repeated open-space forced swim method for rats originally developed by Sun and Alkon (2003). The method consists of swimming mice daily in lukewarm water (32-34°C) in rat tub cages 24 × 43 × 23 cm w × h × l, for 15 min/day for 4 days, and thereafter once per week. This procedure produces a progressive decrease in distance swum and a concomitant increase in immobility (floating) in about 70 percent of the mice (Swiss Webster males), both of which persist unaltered for weeks and generalize to other tests of depression (tail suspension). The model has predictive, face and construct validity in that it is responsive to chronic antidepressants and coping responses but not to anxiolytics or antipsychotics, represents an inescapable stress that produces generalized passivity, and is accompanied by changes in neural activity and brain cell proliferation that are characteristic of depression and believed to contribute to the disorder. It is less effective in producing anhedonia than other models probably because it is less stressful. The model has a number of advantages over previous methods in that it utilizes very mild stress, is short in duration, is easily standardized, requires only a video camera and either a manual or automatic behavioral scoring system to measure immobility and distance swum, and can be readily used for time course studies of onset of drug action. Moreover, since it utilizes a greater swimming area than the traditional (Porsolt) method it can be used to study interactions of depressive behavior with behavioral flexibility and perseveration. Finally, its use of mice makes it readily amenable to genetic and molecular analyses.