Paw preference in rats.

We applied a food-reaching test to investigate paw preference in 114 Spraque-Dawley rats and to determine whether a correlation exists between paw preference and gender. We found that 70.2% of rats were right-pawed, 19.3% were left-pawed, and 11.9% were ambidextrous. No significant difference was found between right-pawed, left-pawed, and ambidextrous male and female rats. The results indicate that the distribution of paw preference in rats is similar to that of other animals and to human handedness.