A Novel Head-Fixed Assay for Social Touch in Mice Uncovers Aversive Responses in Two Autism Models.

ABSTRACT: Social touch, an important aspect of social interaction and communication, is essential to kinship across animal species. How animals experience and respond to social touch has not been thoroughly investigated, in part because of the lack of appropriate assays. Previous studies that examined social touch in freely moving rodents lacked the necessary temporal and spatial control over individual touch interactions. We designed a novel head-fixed assay for social touch in mice, in which the experimenter has complete control to elicit highly stereotyped bouts of social touch between two animals. The user determines the number, duration, context, and type of social touch interactions, while monitoring an array of complex behavioral responses with high resolution cameras. We focused on social to

SUBMITTER: Chari T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10601375 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature