Hereditary determined diving behaviour in rats as a factor of fitness

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Abstract

Background. Rats’ natural ability to swim and dive provides adaptation in the wildlife and is widely applied as an instrument in experimental physiology. Nevertheless there’s little scientific evidence on diving behaviour in rats itself. Meanwhile this behavioural pattern might be a notable trait to shed light on functional features of the nervous system, the higher nervous activity structure and evolutional adaptability in animals, including inherited ones.

Materials and methods. In the present work we compared the performance of the spontaneous diving behaviour in the Morris water maze and forced diving behaviour in the “Extrapolation escape task” in two selected rat strains genetically differing in the nervous system excitability threshold.

Results. We found a greater extent and adaptive pattern of both types of the diving behaviour in the high-excitable LT strain. This may be due to such basic features of this strain as high exploratory activity and an increased level of fear reactions. It was also shown that the second, low-excitable HT rat strain, demonstrates maladaptive jumping behaviour in the “Extrapolation escape task” due to higher anxiety level in the stress conditions.

Conclusion. Observed differences between two strains allow us to consider the diving behaviour performed by high-excitable rats an inherited strain characteristic resembling adaptive rat behaviours in the wild and look forward to investigate its genetic mechanisms.

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About the authors

Anna S. Levina

Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: anna.avia@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1082-1801
SPIN-code: 8662-7227
Scopus Author ID: 57196823274
ResearcherId: AAE-1425-2020

Junior Researcher, Laboratory of Higher Nervous Activity Genetics

Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg

Nina A. Bondarenko

RPC OpenScience Ltd

Email: pochinok30@rambler.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1141-2620

PhD, Scientific Advisor

Russian Federation, Moscow

Natalia V. Shiryaeva

Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: shiryaevanv@infran.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9940-9575
SPIN-code: 6291-7682

PhD, Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Higher Nervous Activity Genetics

Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg

Alexander I. Vaido

Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: vaidoai@infran.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6209-9902
SPIN-code: 1323-5153

Doctor of Science, Main Researcher, Laboratory of Higher Nervous Activity Genetics

Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg

Natalia A. Dyuzhikova

Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the RAS

Email: dyuzhikova@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3617-5948
SPIN-code: 6206-3889

Doctor of Science, Head of the Laboratory of Higher Nervous Activity Genetics

Russian Federation, Saint Petersburg

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Supplementary files

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2. Figure: 1. Diagram of the "Test of extrapolation disposal" setup: 1 - external reservoir; 2 - water; 3 - fastening of the inner cylinder; 4 - inner hollow cylinder

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3. Figure: 2. Comparison of the percentage ratios of the number of rats demonstrating different forms of diving behavior in the VP (n = 75) and NP (n = 76) lines: a - deep diving; b - shallow diving; c - immersion of the head under water; statistically significant interlinear differences: * p = 0.0092; ** p = 0.0001 (Chi-square test with Yates correction). 95% confidence intervals in square brackets

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4. Figure: 3. Distribution of deep diving acts in the experiment with the Morris water maze in EP (n = 5) and LP (n = 26) rats in the temporal and spatial aspects: a is the number of EP rats that dived and the number of over 20 experiment attempts; b - the number of NP rats that dived and the number of dives they made during 20 experiment attempts; c - localization and direction of dives in the water maze in VP rats; d - localization and direction of diving in the water maze in NP rats; Figures c and d show the complete set of single deep diving events recorded in rats of two strains during the experiment, the localization and direction of the dives are indicated by black arrows: the point where the dive starts is indicated by the base of the arrow, the direction is indicated by the head of the arrow; light gray indicates the zone of thigmotaxis, dark gray indicates the hidden platform

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5. Figure: 4. Correlation between the duration of thigmotaxis and the number of spontaneous deep dives in NP rats (n = 41) in the first attempt at a spatial learning experiment in the Morris water maze. The relationship between the variables is described by a nonlinear regression model, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient is 0.37 at a significance level of p = 0.0178, which indicates the presence of a reliable weak positive relationship between the variables

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6. Figure: 5. Parameters of behavior of rats of the EP (n = 7) and NP (n = 6) lines in two successive exposures in the "Extrapolation release" test: a - duration of jumping activity; b - diving latency; medians with confidence intervals are presented; significant interlinear differences: * p = 0.0026; ** p = 0.0034

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Copyright (c) 2020 Levina A.S., Bondarenko N.A., Shiryaeva N.V., Vaido A.I., Dyuzhikova N.A.

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