Involvement of regions of the 4th and 7th chromosomes in the open-field activity of mice.

Reactivity to a new environment was studied in mice, using an open-field procedure in two strains, C57BL/6By and ABP/Le, the F1 populations and the intercrosses F2 and backcross segregating populations. The analysis of the behavioral traits: peripheral and central activities, leaning, rearing and defecation in the parental strains made it possible to show that the ABP/Le strain was more reactive than C57BL/6By. In addition, the study of segregating, for four phenotypic markers, in F2 and backcross populations strongly suggested that two autosomal regions were involved in the control of open-field behavior: one in chromosomal region comprising the b locus on chromosome 4 and one in chromosomal region comprising the p locus on chromosome 7.