Long Range Correlations in the Walking Pattern of Japanese Quails Exposed to Diazepam and FG7142

KEMBRO, J. M.; GUZMÁN, D. A.; PERILLO, M. A.; MARÍN, R. H.

La Cumbre, Córdoba

Workshop; Primer escuela Argentina de Matemática y Biología; 2005

FAMAF, UNC

Long-range correlations in behavioral time series have been well documented. However, no study has evaluated whether they are present or if they are altered when animals are exposed to drugs that modify their GABAergic activity. The present work evaluates the walking patterns of female Japanese quails in their home cage after administration of Diazepam (DZ) (0.2 and 0.5mg/kg), FG7142 (1mg/kg) or Vehicle. Long-range autocorrelations were observed when time series were submitted to a Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA). In all treatments an
@ 0.731 was observed for window sizes <60 seconds. Vehicle and DZ 0.2mg/kg administration respectively induced a monofractal behavior in 78% and 67% of birds. For window sizes >60s a loss in fractility was found in the rest of the quails. DZ 0.5mg/kg and FG7142, showed not only cases with monofractal behavior or with loss of fractility, but also some multifractal cases (33% and 22% respectively). The size distribution of the time length spent walking (DtC) or not walking (DtSC) followed a power law distribution in all cases. While in the analysis of DtC no differences in the scaling factors were observed between groups, the DtSC for FG7142 and DZ 0.5mg/kg showed significantly less negative scaling factors than Vehicle and DZ 0.2mg/kg. Moreover, a negative correlation between the time spent walking and the DtSC scaling factor was found. Results indicate that the distribution of the walking behavior is non Gaussian and long range correlations are present. These correlations persist and in turn can be modified by the administration of drugs that affect GABAergic activity, in a dose-dependent manner.