Dyadic social interaction of C57BL/6 mice versus interaction with a toy mouse: conditioned place preference/aversion, substrain differences, and no development of a hierarchy. Issue 2 (April 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pinheiro, Barbara S.; Seidl, Simon S.; Habazettl, Eva; Gruber, Bernadette E.; Bregolin, Tanja; Zernig, Gerald
• Is Part Of: Behavioural pharmacology. Volume 27:Issue 2/3(2016)
• Publication Date: 2016-04
• Subjects: C57BL/6J substrain -- C57BL/6N substrain -- conditioned place avoidance -- conditioned place preference -- dyadic social interaction -- interspecies comparison -- mouse -- Sprague–Dawley rat -- substrain comparison; Psychopharmacology -- Periodicals; Nervous System -- drug effects -- Periodicals; Behavior -- drug effects -- Periodicals; 615.78
• DOI: 10.1097/FBP.0000000000000223
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0955-8810

Abstract

Abstract : Impaired social interaction is a hallmark symptom of many psychiatric diseases, including dependence syndromes (substance use disorders). Helping the addict reorient her/his behavior away from the drug of abuse toward social interaction would be of considerable therapeutic benefit. To study the neural basis of such a reorientation, we have developed several animal models in which the attractiveness of a dyadic (i.e. one-to-one) social interaction (DSI) can be compared directly with that of cocaine as a prototypical drug of abuse. Our models are based on the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. In an ongoing effort to validate our experimental paradigms in C57BL/6 mice to make use of the plethora of transgenic models available in this genus, we found the following: (a) DSI with a live mouse produced CPP, whereas an interaction with an inanimate mouse-like object (i.e. a 'toy mouse'; toy mouse interaction) led to conditioned place aversion – but only in the Jackson substrain (C57BL/6J). (b) In the NIH substrain (C57BL/6N), both DSI and toy mouse interaction produced individual aversion in more than 50% of the tested mice. (c) Four 15 min DSI episodes did not result in the development of an observable hierarchy, that is, dominance/subordination behavior in the overwhelming majority (i.e. 30 of 32) of the tested Jackson mouse pairs. Therefore, dominance/subordination does not seem to be a confounding variable in our paradigm, at least not in C57BL/6J mice. Respective data for NIH mice were too limited to allow any conclusion. The present findings indicate that (a) DSI with a live mouse produces CPP to a greater degree than an interaction with an inanimate object resembling a mouse and that (b) certain substrain differences with respect to CPP/aversion to DSI do exist between the Jax and NIH substrain of C57BL/6 mice. These differences have to be considered when choosing a proper mouse substrain model for investigating the neural basis of DSI reward versus drug reward.