RESEARCH ARTICLE Sex-related differences in behavioural markers in adult mice for the prediction of lifespan Hikaru Kobayashi . Irene Martı ´nez de Toda . Luis Sanz-San Miguel . Mo ´nica De la Fuente Received: 24 July 2020 / Accepted: 9 October 2020 / Published online: 16 October 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Finding biomarkers to assess the rate of ageing and consequently, to forecast individual lifes- pan is a challenge in ageing research. We recently published a mathematical model for lifespan predic- tion in adult female mice using behavioural parame- ters such as internal locomotion and time spent in open arms in the hole board (HB) and elevated plus maze (EPM) tests, respectively. Nevertheless, it is still not known if these behavioural variables could be useful in forecasting lifespan in male mice. Therefore, two groups of ICR-CD1 mice, male and female were subjected to the EPM, HB and T-maze tests at the adult age. Mice were monitored until they died and individual lifespans were registered. In general, adult male mice showed more anxiety-like behaviours than females. The mathematical model previously devel- oped in females was validated with the female cohort, but found to be suboptimal for lifespan prediction in males. Thus, a new model for male lifespan prediction was constructed including the behavioural variables that were predictive of lifespan in males: time in the central platform of the EPM, inner locomotion, number of groomings and number and duration of head-dippings in the HB. These results confirm that the higher the anxiety-like behaviour at the adult age, the shorter the lifespan. Keywords Male and female mice behaviour Á Lifespan prediction Á Anxiety and exploratory behaviour Á Multiple lineal regression Introduction It is known that the rate of ageing and therefore, the expected lifespan differs between individuals with the same chronological age (Collier and Coleman 1991). Because of this, chronological age proves to be an unreliable tool in the estimation of the rate of ageing. Hikaru Kobayashi and Irene Martı ´nez de Toda contributed equally to this research. H. Kobayashi Á I. Martı ´nez de Toda Á M. De la Fuente (&) Department of Genetics, Physiology and Microbiology (Unit of Animal Physiology), Faculty of Biology, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain e-mail: mondelaf@bio.ucm.es H. Kobayashi Á I. Martı ´nez de Toda Á M. De la Fuente Institute of Investigation Hospital 12 Octubre, Madrid, Spain I. Martı ´nez de Toda Applied Molecular Medicine Institute, School of Medicine, Universidad San Pablo CEU, CEU Universities, Madrid, Spain L. Sanz-San Miguel Department of Statistics and Operational Research, Faculty of Mathematics, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain 123 Biogerontology (2021) 22:49–62 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-020-09902-x