The shock-probe defensive burying test (SPDB) is one of several tasks used in the BN Lab to measure the behavioral response to anxiety. Developed by Pinel and Treit in 1978 this one trial task measures an active behavior (burying) that is in direct response to an anxiety provoking stressor (a shock). After receiving a shock from a stationary electrified probe, rats typically exhibit a varying period of inactivity and immobility (a passive response), followed by bouts of burying behavior (an active response). This behavior consists of vigorous burrowing, shoveling and flicking movements with the forepaws and head to displace the cage bedding material toward the probe. This defensive burying behavior is never observed in the absence of shock, and has been validated as an ethologically relevant, active response elicited by and directed specifically at the probe (Pinel and Treit, 1978; Treit et al., 1981).

The lateral septum (LS) is important in the behavioral expression of anxiety (Thomas, 1988; Menard and Treit,1996; Sheehan et al., 2004), and has been shown to modulate performance on several behavioral tasks designed to measure anxiety-like responding, including the social interaction test, elevated plus-maze, and SPDB test (Cheetaet al., 2000; De Boer and Koolhaas, 2003; Sheehan et al., 2004). Electrolytic lesions to the LS completely abolished burying behavior on the SPDB task (Menard and Treit, 1996). Moreover, the septal area is richly innervated by galanin-containing fibers (Melander et al., 1986a,b; Jacobowitz et al., 2004). Some of these represent co-localization of GAL with norepinephrine in fibers originating from stress-reactive noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus and caudal brain stem (Moore, 1978). Previous research by Dr. Echevarria investigated the effects of microinjecting the galanin antagonist M40 bilaterally into the lateral septum on shock-probe defensive burying behavior.

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