Fig. 1. Arousal states modify anxiety-like performance in a genotype- and sex-specific manner.

Male and female Wistar (W) and Marchigian Sardinian alcohol-preferring (msP) rats were either habituated to the testing conditions and examined for marble-burying behavior (B) and immobility (C) under a dimly-lit setting or were unhandled and tested under brightly-lit conditions (n= 10 per group). Frequency counts for marble-burying (A) revealed a positively-skewed distribution of the data and were thus analyzed using a generalized linear model approach. Genotypic differences emerged such that msPs displayed reduced marble-burying and increased immobility relative to their Wistar counterparts. The genotypic difference in immobility time persisted across testing conditions in females, while males more generally displayed increased immobility than females. Data reflect the number of observations, mean count or time in seconds (± SEM). Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences in genotype and pound signs (#) indicate significant differences in sex (p<0.05).