Short duration of retroactive facilitation of social recognition in rats.
Adult rats spent less time investigating the same juvenile during a second dyadic encounter session. This decrease served as an index for social recognition. Social recognition was not influenced by isolating the juveniles for 7 days prior to experimentation. Retroactive facilitation of social recognition was observed when the two rats were confronted for a longer period of time on a given day by multiple testing. However, this facilitation was not observed after a 24-h interexposure interval between encounter sessions, even when different housing conditions during that time were taken into account, and animals were tested during 5 consecutive days. It is suggested that social recognition may be a form of short-term memory.
Sekiguchi
R
R
Department of Pharmacology, Rudolf Magnus Institute, Medical Faculty, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Wolterink
G
G
van Ree
J M
JM
D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012932:Social Facilitation; D012934:Social Isolation / Q000523:psychology