• Andrew H Fairless, Julia M Katz, Neha Vijayvargiya, Holly C Dow, Arati Sadalge Kreibich, Wade H Berrettini, Ted Abel, and Edward S Brodkin.
• Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, Translational Research Laboratory, 125 South 31st Street, Room 2220, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3403, USA.
• Behav. Brain Res. 2013 Jan 15; 237: 338-47.

AbstractBALB/cJ and C57BL/6J inbred mouse strains have been proposed as useful models of low and high levels of sociability (tendency to seek social interaction), respectively, based primarily on behaviors of ∼30-day-old mice in the Social Approach Test (SAT). In the SAT, approach and sniffing behaviors of a test mouse toward an unfamiliar stimulus mouse are measured in a novel environment. However, it is unclear whether such results generalize to a familiar environment with a familiar social partner, such as with a littermate in a home cage environment. We hypothesized that C57BL/6J mice would show higher levels of social behaviors than BALB/cJ mice in the home cage environment, particularly at 30 days-of-age. We measured active and passive social behaviors in home cages by pairs of BALB/cJ or C57BL/6J littermates at ages 30, 41, and 69 days. The strains did not differ robustly in their active social behaviors. C57BL/6J mice were more passively social than BALB/cJ mice at 30 days, and C57BL/6J levels of passive social behaviors declined to BALB/cJ levels by 69 days. The differences in passive social behaviors at 30 days-of-age were primarily attributable to differences in huddling. These results indicate that different test conditions (SAT conditions vs. home cage conditions) elicit strain differences in distinct types of behaviors (approach/sniffing vs. huddling behaviors, respectively). Assessment of the more naturalistic social interactions in the familiar home cage environment with a familiar littermate will provide a useful component of a comprehensive assessment of social behaviors in mouse models relevant to autism.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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