title: The SocioBox: A Novel Paradigm to Assess Complex Social Recognition in Male Mice.
abstract: Impairments in social skills are central to mental disease, and developing tools for their assessment in mouse models is essential. Here we present the SocioBox, a new behavioral paradigm to measure social recognition. Using this paradigm, we show that male wildtype mice of different strains can readily identify an unfamiliar mouse among 5 newly acquainted animals. In contrast, female mice exhibit lower locomotor activity during social exploration in the SocioBox compared to males and do not seem to discriminate between acquainted and unfamiliar mice, likely reflecting inherent differences in gender-specific territorial tasks. In addition to a simple quantification of social interaction time of mice grounded on predefined spatial zones (zone-based method), we developed a set of unbiased, data-driven analysis tools based on heat map representations and characterized by greater sensitivity. First proof-of-principle that the SocioBox allows diagnosis of social recognition deficits is provided using male PSD-95 heterozygous knockout mice, a mouse model related to psychiatric pathophysiology.
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine Göttingen, Germany.
authors: Dilja
authors: D
authors: Krueger-Burg
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental MedicineGöttingen, Germany; DFG Research Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the BrainGöttingen, Germany.
authors: Daniela
authors: D
authors: Winkler
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine Göttingen, Germany.
authors: Mišo
authors: M
authors: Mitkovski
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine Göttingen, Germany.
authors: Fernanda
authors: F
authors: Daher
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine Göttingen, Germany.
authors: Anja
authors: A
authors: Ronnenberg
authors: DFG Research Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the BrainGöttingen, Germany; European Neuroscience InstituteGöttingen, Germany.
authors: Oliver M
authors: OM
authors: Schlüter
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental MedicineGöttingen, Germany; DFG Research Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the BrainGöttingen, Germany.
authors: Ekrem
authors: E
authors: Dere
authors: Max Planck Institute of Experimental MedicineGöttingen, Germany; DFG Research Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the BrainGöttingen, Germany.
authors: Hannelore
authors: H
authors: Ehrenreich
keywords: PSD-95; autism; behavior; gender differences; mouse model; schizophrenia