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Social enclosures

The Social Enclosures module (04SE) provides a model for social interactions, measured using the sociability[ref], social novelty[ref], and social memory tests[ref]. These metrics of social behavior are automatically recorded using two enclosures hung at both end walls of the homecage.

Principle

The time spent exploring the enclosures (with or without the stimulus mice) by the test subject is measured[YP1]. During the habituation session, the subject mouse usually explores zones 1 and 4 equally. During the sociability session, the subject mouse spends more time exploring the enclosure with ‘stranger 1’ mouse compared to the empty enclosure, indicating sociability. During the social novelty session, the subject mouse spends more time exploring with ‘stranger 2’ than ‘stranger 1’, indicating social novelty. By introducing a delay in social novelty testing after the initial sociability session, social memory can be assessed. The accuracy of our automated assessment has been validated manually.


 [YP1]this sentence needs work

 Rodent social memory test

Khroyan et al., 2012 -- add full reference and link here