Thesis
Live plant and artificial plant settings are able to alleviate anxiety levels in mice: an elevated plus-maze study
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2009
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100465
Abstract
It has been established that green plant settings around humans can alleviate anxiety, and there is evidence that the response may be partly innate. This experiment was designed to find out if a similar innate response occurs in rodents. Elevated Plus-mazes have been used to measure anxiety levels in mice in pharmacological studies. They consist of 2 open arms and 2 closed arms. A less anxious mouse is expected to explore the open arm more frequently and stay there for longer periods of time. In this experiment, there were two treatment groups and a control. The control had nothing around the maze, the live plant treatment had live plants at the ends of each arm, and the artificial plant treatment used silk plants that resembled the live plants. Number of entries and time spent in open and closed arms was measured and analyzed using Mixed Linear Models Procedure in SAS. Mice spent significantly more time exploring the open arms during the live plant treatment than in the control (P < 0.001) or artificial plant treatment (P < 0.035). Animals in the artificial plant treatment also spent significantly more time in the open arms than in the control (P < 0.021). In addition, the percentage of entries made by live plant treatment mice into the open arms was significantly higher than in the control (P<0.002) and in artificial plant treatment (P<0.007) as well. However, it was not significantly different from artificial plant treatment mice (P< 0.199). In conclusion, this study showed that mice also appear to respond innately to nature. In this elevated plus-maze study, naïve mice were found to be the least anxious when exposed to the live plant environment and most anxious in the no plant environment. Response in the artificial plant environment was intermediate. While the response was strong, the fact that the differences between live and artificial plants were not always significant indicates that a better design is required in order to provide a good model system for studying this effect.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Live plant and artificial plant settings are able to alleviate anxiety levels in mice
- Creators
- Sujeet Verma
- Contributors
- Virginia I. Lohr (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Horticulture, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525111201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis