An automated test of social interaction using trios of miceM. PratteP3M, Functional Genomics, Behaviors and Pathology, CNRS, Marseille, FranceAn experiment was designed to assess the relative level of social interaction during encounters involving trios of juvenile inbred mice. This design was used to compare social behavior toward a familiar versus an unfamiliar individual in trios consisting of two familiar cage mate males plus a third unfamiliar male from another strain. The two strains used (C57/BL6 and 129S2/Sv) are frequently employed in transgenic research. The automation of the spatial positioning was obtained by using a video-tracking program, the EthoVision® version 2.3 system. In addition social behaviors were manually scored with the Manual event recorder included in the system. Correlations between manual and automated parameters showed that spatial parameters provided by EthoVision® (Noldus Information Technology by, The Netherlands) correctly fit the level of social interaction between mice. Notable differences were shown between the two strains C57/BL6 and 129S2/Sv: the total duration and frequency of bouts during which two individuals were close to each other were good indicators of the discrimination of social novelty. Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands. © 2005 Noldus Information Technology bv |