Anxiety in females induced by long-lasting psychoemotional influences.

The experiments reported here addressed the behavior of female mice after long-lasting psychoemotional influences consisting of daily placing of females in the presence of intermale confrontations, the females being on the other side of a transparent perforated partition; females were subsequently placed in the territory (litter) in which the conflict had taken place. These conditions induced anxiety in the females, detected in the elevated cross maze test. In the absence of any marked prodepressant effect, females were more passive in the Porsolt test. There was also an increase in the time spent by females close to the partition both 5 min before the start of the conflict and during the intermale conflict.