Anxiety-related behaviors without observation of generalized pain in a mouse model of endometriosis

Paulina Nunez-Badinez, Paulina Nuñez‐Badinez, Alexis Laux‐Biehlmann, Alexis Laux-Biehlmann, Michael D Hayward, Olesia Buiakova, Thomas M Zollner, Jens Nagel
Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023 · vol. 17 , pp. 1118598 · doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1118598 · PMID:36844654 · PMC9947402 · W4319761665
article OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 2 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

Endometriosis-induced mice exhibited anxiety-related behaviors in elevated plus maze and feeding suppression tests, despite no differences in locomotion or generalized pain.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This paper investigated anxiety-related behaviors in a syngeneic, surgery-induced mouse model of endometriosis by using the elevated plus maze and the novel environment-induced feeding suppression assay, with food intake and additional assays of locomotion and generalized pain. In adult C57BL/6 female mice, the authors found increased anxiety-like behaviors in endometriosis-induced animals, whereas locomotion and generalized pain measures (von Frey and Hargreaves) did not differ from sham controls. A major caveat is that only two behavioral domains (anxiety-related behaviors and generalized pain thresholds) were assessed and no direct neurobiological mechanisms were measured to explain the dissociation. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it characterizes anxiety-related behavioral changes in a syngeneic mouse model while testing whether generalized pain and locomotion are affected.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is a chronic, hormone-dependent, inflammatory disease, characterized by the presence and growth of endometrial tissue outside the uterine cavity. It is associated with moderate to severe pelvic and abdominal pain symptoms, subfertility and a marked reduction in health-related quality of life. Furthermore, relevant co-morbidities with affective disorders like depression or anxiety have been described. These conditions have a worsening effect on pain perception in patients and might explain the negative impact on quality of life observed in those suffering from endometriosis-associated pain. Whereas several studies using rodent models of endometriosis focused on biological and histopathological similarities with the human situation, the behavioral characterization of these models was never performed. This study investigated the anxiety-related behaviors in a syngeneic model of endometriosis. Using elevated plus maze and the novel environment induced feeding suppression assays we observed the presence of anxiety-related behaviors in endometriosis-induced mice. In contrast, locomotion or generalized pain did not differ between groups. These results indicate that the presence of endometriosis lesions in the abdominal cavity could, similarly to patients, induce profound psychopathological changes/impairments in mice. These readouts might provide additional tools for preclinical identification of mechanisms relevant for development of endometriosis-related symptoms.

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endometriosis

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