Continuous monitoring and machine vision reveals that developing gerbils exhibit structured social behaviors prior to the emergence of autonomy.

ABSTRACT: Investigating social and independent behavior structure in early life is critical for understanding development and brain maturation in social mammals. However, this investigation necessitates monitoring animals over weeks to months often with subsecond time resolution creating challenges for both lab studies focused on brief observation periods and field studies in which animal tracking can be imprecise. Here we used machine vision and two-week long continuous behavior recordings of families of gerbils, a highly social rodent, in large, undisturbed home environments to quantify the behavioral development of individual pups. We discovered that individual pups exhibited complex social behaviors from the first day they left the nest including a preference for interactions with siblings over

SUBMITTER: Mitelut C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12416696 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature