The regular and light-dark Suok tests of anxiety and sensorimotor integration: utility for behavioral characterization in laboratory rodents

Animal behavioral models are crucial for neurobiological research, allowing for the thorough investigation of brain pathogenesis to be performed. In both animals and humans, anxiety has long been linked to vestibular disorders. However, although there are many tests of anxiety and vestibular deficits, there are few protocols that address the interplay between these two domains. The Suok test and its light-dark modification presented here appear to be suitable for testing this pathogenetic link in laboratory rodents. This protocol adds a new dimension to previously used tests by assessing animal anxiety and balancing simultaneously, resulting in efficient, high-throughput screens for testing psychotropic drugs, phenotyping genetically modified animals, and modeling clusters of human disorders related to stress/anxiety and balancing.