Some Guidelines for Defining Personality Differences in Rats

Whereas many behavioral studies with rats have been traditionally concerned with tests and/or models attempting to deal with subjects such as anxiety, depression, hyperactivity, alcoholism and drug abuse, as they pertain to the human conditions, critical and integrated analyses of the vast amounts of information which have been accumulated, and an application of the same to the realm of personality traits, are long overdue. One such application, for example, might deal with the etiology of substance use and abuse toward which different animal models, considered together, can undoubtedly play a decisive role, especially as genetic factors are known to be extensively involved in the temperament differences underlying these phenomena in both rats and humans. The major contributions of such models toward this goal will, of course, pertain to unraveling the fundamental neurochemical processes involved and to deciphering their genetic origins.