Disease, head injury, genetic modifications, and treatment of mice with drugs can have profound effects on behavior. Utilizing well-characterized and validated approaches such as marble burying and nestlet shredding, compulsive-like behaviors can be documented accurately in mice as models of human obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism spectrum disorder.
Angoa-Pérez, M., Kane, M. J., Briggs, D. I., Francescutti, D. M., Kuhn, D. M. Marble Burying and Nestlet Shredding as Tests of Repetitive, Compulsive-like Behaviors in Mice. J. Vis. Exp. (82), e50978, doi:10.3791/50978 (2013).