Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: The forced swimming test is a test applied to rodents, commonly used to predict the effects of potentially antidepressant substances. The evaluation of the effect of antidepressants occurs mainly by measuring the duration of the immobility behavior expressed by the rodent, which increases with prolonged exposure to the test, and treatment with antidepressants decrease this passive behavior. Over the years, the test has undergone refinements, accompanied by the insertion of cofactors, from the variation in the population, intervention, and even in the experimental protocols. In addition, naturally, the quality of exploratory studies has been increased, and guides for planning and reporting experiments have their influence on this change. Even with these sources of heterogeneity, the published results of the forced swim test outcomes are promising, raising the question of a possible publication bias, where only positive results are published, and negative ones are suppressed from the literature. Thereby, some questions were raised: "How effective are antidepressants on reducing rodent immobility time in the forced swim test?", "How do the characteristics and quality of studies affect the effect size of antidepressants?" and “Is there a publication bias in the area?”. In the present study, we expected to answer these questions by conducting a systematic review and network meta-analysis.