Changes in the adaptive behavior of active and passive wistar rats in a water immersion model of depression.

Animals with active and passive strategies of adaptive behavior were selected from a population of Wistar rats by testing in a T maze to measure the indexes of behavioral passivity and behavioral activity. After single (stress) or two (stress-restress) water immersions, individual changes in adaptive behavior were used to study the development of post-stress psychopathology and its interaction with the initial behavioral strategy. In the unavoidable aversive environment, active and passive rats developed different types of post-stress depression, only passive individuals fulfilling the criteria of post-traumatic stress disorder.