Open Field Test
Objective: Assessment of locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior in mice using an open field apparatus
This is a Open Field Test protocol using mouse as the model organism. The procedure involves 2 procedural steps, 1 equipment items, 2 materials. Extracted from a 2016 paper published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Model and subjects
mouse • C57BL/6J background • male • 60-90 days • 101
Study window
~30 minutes hands-on
Core workflow
Animal acclimation to testing room • Open field test execution
Primary readouts
- Locomotor activity
- Anxiety-like behavior
Key equipment and reagents
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Protocol Steps
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Animal acclimation to testing room
Animals were given habituation time to the behavioral testing room prior to testing
Note: Habituation performed before behavioral phenotyping
View evidence from paper
“Animals were given 30 min of habituation to the behavioral testing room”
Open field test execution
Open field test performed as part of behavioral phenotyping battery, conducted after rotarod, elevated plus maze, and marble burying test to minimize influence of prior test history
Note: Test order was reversed after chronic restraint stress for bell-shaped stress exposure; testing performed between 0900h and 1600h
View evidence from paper
“Tests were performed from the least to the most invasive to minimize the influence of prior test history (in order: rotarod, elevated plus maze, marble burying test, open field test, sucrose preference test, novelty suppressed feeding and forced swim test)”