Changes in social reward across adolescence in male mice
Abstract
Background
In humans, adolescence is a time of dynamic behavioral and emotional changes, including a transient decrease in affect associated with being among family members. It is not clear if a similar change occurs in rodent species used to model human psychiatric disorders. Here, we investigated in the developmental profile of the reward value of interactions with siblings across adolescence in mice.
Methods
Social conditioned place preference test was performed in male mice representing early (around postnatal day 33 [P33]), middle (P38) and late (P43) adolescence stages. Additionally, social interaction in the partition test and cocaine conditioned place preference were measured to assess the specificity of changes observed in social reward.
Results
The reward value of interactions with siblings in adolescent male mice followed a similar course to that in humans: high in preadolescence, it decreased in mid-adolescence and returned to the initial level in late adolescence. No age-dependent changes in social interaction or in the preference for cocaine-conditioned context were detected.
Limitations
The main limitation of our study is that it does not examine potential developmental changes in the proximate psychological mechanisms underlying social place preference.
Conclusions
Taken together, these data show similarities between mice and humans in developmental changes in sensitivity to the rewarding effects of interactions with familiar kin.
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