An analysis of single-gene effects on avoidance, maze, wheel running, and exploratory behavior in the mouse

Abstract

Thirty-one different single-gene mouse mutants on the inbred C57BL/6J background were tested for their wheel-running behavior, exploratory activity, active avoidance, and maze learning. The effects of 27 coat-color alleles and of four other mutations were assessed by comparing the performance of mutant mice to that of their siblings (heterozygous or normal) and to that of a group of normal C57BL/6J mice. Twelve mutants exhibited wheel-running or exploratory activity levels different from that of normal mice. Similarly, seven mutants were found to attain an avoidance performance level significantly higher than that evident in control mice. Two of the high-avoiding mutants were also characterized by higher maze learning ability. The results point out that though these behavioral traits are influenced by genes at many loci, a single gene may substantially contribute to the additive and dominance genetic variance of the behavior.