The role of individual factors in behavioral neuroscience is an important, but still neglected, area of research. For example, the Elevated Plus-Maze Test has been one of the most used paradigms to gauge unconditioned aversively motivated behavior in rodents. However, despite a great number of experiments with this test there have been only few efforts to assess systematic individual variations in the elevated plus-maze and related neurobiological functions. The present review aims to give, first, a general overview and (...) introduction about the test, and second, an animal model of anxiety based on natural variance of plus-maze behavior within a given unselected population of rats. Finally, critical aspects of such approaches in animal research are discussed, and suggestions are given as to where to go from here. (shrink)

In submitting rats to tests such as running a maze, behaviorist researchers failed to take into account the interest and point of view of the rats. As a result, the research missed important questions and relations at hand. The critiques about experimenter effect and intuitive perception of researchers’ questions by research subjects can be more fully extended to animals as research subjects and interactants in research who perceive and interpret situations, set-ups, and questions. Taking meaning and biosemiotics (...) into account helps give a better model of animal subjectivity as exercised in the interpretation of situations and the pursuit of interest. (shrink)