Adult resocialization restores sociability, reduced by adolescent social isolation in rats

Abstract

We aimed to assess the effect of 6-week adolescent social isolation on sociability and social novelty preference in male Wistar rats. In addition, we examined whether isolation effects would persist after adult resocialization. Our findings demonstrate that social isolation resulted in decreased social interest (the time spent interacting with an unfamiliar rat of the same sex and age decreased from 115.4 ± 13.3 s in group-housed animals to 82.3 ± 11.0 s in isolated, P < 0.05), while social novelty preference was not significantly different between isolated and group-housed rats. We also report that 6-week resocialization was sufficient to restore social interaction levels in isolated rats (time spent with an unfamiliar rat was 117.9 ± 12.6 s in isolated animals and 102.5 ± 10.9 s in group-housed). These findings may be useful for better understanding the impact of social deprivation on human subjects, which has recently become especially relevant due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.