Overall, these data suggest that, although there may be an underlying construct in mice that can be called novelty seeking, this construct is genotypically complex and confounded with other factors (notably general activity, anxiety, and stress), and no single task can claim to measure it. Earlier studies have also tended to show a lack of correlation among multiple tasks putatively assessing exploratory, anxiety-like, and novelty seeking tendencies (17, 24), and our data suggest that this is also true at the level of genetic influences. The current findings highlight the need for a better understanding of what is actually being measured in putative animal models of personality traits, particularly in studies attempting to identify genetic contributions to individual differences.
