Table 1.

Effect of Mg²⁺ deficiency and chronic paroxetine treatment on behavioural measures assessed in diverse tests of anxiety in C57Bl/6N mice.

	Control	MgD	MgD + PAR
Stress-induced hyperthermia
T1 (°C)	35.8 ± 0.2	36.5 ± 0.1*	35.6 ± 0.2##
T2 (°C)	36.9 ± 0.1	37.2 ± 0.1	36.7 ± 0.2
T2 − T1 (°C)	1.1 ± 0.1	0.7 ± 0.1*	1.2 ± 0.1#
Open field test
Centre entries (n)	31.8 ± 3.0	23.3 ± 3.2a	17.6 ± 3.3**
Centre time (s)	87.8 ± 12	51.2 ± 8.4*	45.7 ± 8.9**
Rearings (n)	25.7 ± 3.2	18.4 ± 2.7a	12.3 ± 2.0**
Distance travelled (cm)	2399 ± 133	2060 ± 132	1892 ± 168
Light/dark test
Latency (s)	85.9 ± 14	229 ± 44**	224 ± 25**
Entries into the lit arena (n)	10.9 ± 1.0	8.8 ± 1.4	6.4 ± 1.2*
Time spent in lit arena (s)	161 ± 22	155 ± 27	73.7 ± 15**#
Rearings (n)	17.9 ± 1.9	17.9 ± 2.3	9.2 ± 1.2**##
Distance travelled (cm)	2539 ± 120	2215 ± 127	2199 ± 87

Data are presented as means ± SEM. n = 10 for control and MgD groups, and n = 10 or 5 (in the stress-induced hyperthermia test) for MgD + PAR group.

^aP < 0.08, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 for MgD vs. control mice; ^#P < 0.05, ^##P < 0.01 MgD + PAR vs. MgD mice. MgD: Mg²⁺ deficient mice; MgD + PAR: Mg²⁺ deficient mice chronically treated with paroxetine.