Social isolation improves the performance of rodents in a novel cognitive flexibility task
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RESEARCH
Open Access
Social isolation improves the performance of rodents in a novel cognitive flexibility task Xin-Yuan Fei1, Sha Liu1, Yan-Hong Sun2* and Liang Cheng1*
Abstract Background: Social isolation, i.e., the deprivation of social contact, is a highly stressful circumstance that affects behavioral and functional brain development in social animals. Cognitive flexibility, one of the essential executive brain function that facilitates survival problem solving, was reported to be impaired after social isolation rearing. However, most of the previous studies have focused on the constrained aspect of flexibility and little is known about the unconstrained aspect. In the present study, the unconstrained cognitive flexibility of Kunming mice (Mus musculus, Km) reared in isolation was examined by a novel digging task. The exploratory behavior of the mice was also tested utilizing the hole-board and elevated plus maze tests to explain the differences in cognitive flexibility between the mice reared socially and in isolation. Results: The results demonstrated that the isolated mice had a higher success rate in solving the novel digging problem and showed a higher rate of exploratory behavior compared with the controls. Linear regression analysis revealed that the time it took the mice to solve the digging problem was negatively associated with exploratory behavior. Conclusions: The data suggest that social isolation rearing improves unconstrained cognitive flexibility in mice, which is probably related to an increase in their exploratory behavior. Such effects may reflect the behavioral and cognitive evolutionary adaptations of rodents to survive under complex and stressful conditions.
Background Social interactions play a central role in the everyday life of many organisms, and exposure to conspecifics is critically important for behavioral development during ontogeny [1, 2]. Rodents are social animals that normally live in groups and are reared together. They interact with conspecific individuals after birth or hatching. Thus, social isolation (i.e., the deprivation of social contact) during rodent adolescence is a highly stressful circumstance that affects behavior and structural and functional brain development [3–7]. Behavioral and functional brain changes in rodents by social isolation * Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 2 Fisheries Research Institute, Wuhan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan 430207, China 1 School of Psychology & Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsycology and Behavior (CCNU) of Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
rearing have been characterized and include enhanced aggressive and anxious behavior [8–10], increased locomotor activity [11, 12], deficits in sensorimotor gating [13–15], and cognitive dysfunction [16, 17]. Cognitive flexibility, an essential executive brain function that contributes to changing the behavior of an organism depending on situational demands, is very important for rodent survival in comp
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