Developing a behavioral model of Restless Legs Syndrome utilizing mice with natural variances in ventral midbrain iron.

•Recombinant inbred (RI) mice show variances in brain iron on which the animal model of Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is developed.•The RI strain 40 shows a distinct end-of-active-period behavior analogous to circadian-dependent clinical phenotype of RLS.•The behavioral analog of RLS correlates with two independent measures of ventral midbrain iron's susceptibility-to-change.