title: Nocturnal hyperactivity, increased social novelty preference and delayed extinction of fear responses in post-weaning socially isolated mice.
abstract: When rodents are reared in isolation from young age onwards, they manifest a number of behavioural alterations in adulthood. Since some of these alterations resemble symptoms of psychiatric disorders, the post-weaning social isolation (ISO) manipulation is often applied to create rodent models of these disorders. In rats, ISO effects have been thoroughly characterised, but in mice they are less well documented. Therefore, we further evaluated behaviour of adult ISO mice with a test battery that focussed on abnormalities relevant to schizophrenia. We found that ISO mice were hyperactive during the dark phase. Also, ISO mice showed alterations in magnitude, habituation and prepulse-inhibition of the acoustic startle reflex, increased anxiety, increased social preference and changes in extinction of fear responses. We did not observe increased sensitivity to locomotor-activating effects of amphetamine. It is concluded that ISO of mice might serve as a useful model to test further hypotheses regarding pathogenesis occurring at specific developmental timeframes.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Biological Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KULeuven, Tiensestraat 102, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. arne.naert@psy.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: Arne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Naert
authors.forename: Zsuzsanna
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Callaerts-Vegh
authors.forename: Rudi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: D'Hooge
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D003624:Darkness; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010507:Periodicity; D051381:Rats; D013216:Reflex, Startle / Q000502:physiology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology; D012934:Social Isolation / Q000523:psychology*