Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. Dec 22, 2015; 5(4): 387-396
Published online Dec 22, 2015. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v5.i4.387
Animal models for posttraumatic stress disorder: An overview of what is used in research
Bart Borghans, Judith R Homberg
Bart Borghans, Judith R Homberg, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, 6525 EZ Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Author contributions: Borghans B wrote and Homberg JR critically revised the manuscript.
Supported by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), No. 864.10.003 (awarded to Judith R Homberg).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to report. Funding organisations had no further role in the design of the study, nor in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Judith R Homberg, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, Geert Grooteplein 21, 6525 EZ Nijmegen, The Netherlands. judith.homberg@radboudumc.nl
Telephone: +31-24-3610906
Received: June 9, 2015
Peer-review started: June 11, 2015
First decision: August 25, 2015
Revised: August 27, 2015
Accepted: October 23, 2015
Article in press: October 27, 2015
Published online: December 22, 2015
Processing time: 192 Days and 16.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: There are currently several widely accepted animal models being used in fundamental posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research, and many publications using them have made valuable contributions to the collective knowledge on the subject. Still, the difference between models indicates that their suitability depends on the situation; each model has shown different amounts of success in replicating individual criteria or aspects of PTSD. Accordingly, the selection of the most suitable model for each experiment is important for optimally reliable results. This review offers relevant information to aid in that decision.