Establishment of a social conditioned place preference paradigm for the study of social reward in female mice.

ABSTRACT: Social interactions can be and often are rewarding. The effect of social contact strongly depends on circumstances, and the reward may be driven by varied motivational processes, ranging from parental or affiliative behaviors to investigation or aggression. Reward associated with nonreproductive interactions in rodents is measured using the social conditioned place preference (sCPP) paradigm, where a change in preference for an initially neutral context confirms reinforcing effects of social contact. Here, we revised the sCPP method and reexamined social reward in adult female mice. Contrary to earlier studies, we found that robust rewarding effects of social contact could be detected in adult (14-week-old) female C57BL/6 mice when the sCPP task was refined to remove confounding factors. S

SUBMITTER: Harda Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9253334 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature