Our Forced Swim and Tail Suspension assays are the two assays we have developed primarily to research depression.  But, creative researchers are using other of our assays to study depression including our Open Field system, Elevated Plus Maze and Zero Maze.

Looking at PubMed and searching the specific assays in the title or abstract and also certain behavior research areas (e.g., anxiety, depression) anywhere in the publication we found that there were 3109 articles for “Forced Swim.”  Of these, 2097 (67.45%) also had “depression” somewhere in the publication.  Further, we found 1987 articles for “Tail Suspension.”  Of these, 1130 (56.87%) also had “depression” somewhere in the publication.  That isn’t surprising considering the role the Tail Suspension assay has played in finding anti-depressant drugs among other things.  Although imperfect and far from an exhaustive or rigorous survey, this research project was still instructive and illuminated the uses of these assays.

What was somewhat surprising was to discover that other devices we make and sell, traditionally used to study other behavior research areas, have been used, at least to some degree, to study depression:

So, it may be that you or your colleagues might want to consider using these other assays creatively in your depression research.  If you are interested in the list of references to these prior “creative” uses, let us know and we will send that to you.