Social Behavior Blog Posts

Into the lab: how to monitor rat social behavior

Including social behavior as part of a phenotypic screen has important benefits and eventually leads to better translational value of rodent models.

Towards automated homecage monitoring of group housed rats

Rodent social behavior is important in research on neuropsychiatric disorders, but major limitations hamper progress.

Serotonin and social skills: how adult mice differ from juveniles

Serotonin is a busy neurotransmitter, influencing processes as memory, mood, emotion, appetite, and sexuality. A prime role for this neurotransmitter is social behavior, across a variety of species; humans, rodents, primates.

How to analyze bird calls with UltraVox XT: a summer love on a spectrogram

You may know that the recently-released UltraVox XT 3 is used to study ultrasound vocalizations, especially in rodents and bats. But the fact that it analyzes full-spectrum sound, makes it ideal for analyzing bird calls.

Bonobos not always as tolerant as generally believed: the plot thickens…

In Planckendael Wild Animal Park (Belgium), researchers have been observing a group of bonobos and have found that the differences between chimpanzees and bonobos are not always as black and white as generally believed.

How to measure the social behavior of Fragile X mice

The treatment of Fragile X syndrome is limited to the symptoms. One of the factors currently holding back drug development is the difficulty of finding a reliable behavioral test for neurobiological studies.

A high-throughput method to screen natural behavior of mice

Traditional standard tests with rats or mice are carried out immediately after human interference. Therefore, the behavior of the animals may not be natural and spontaneous.

How wild cavies and domesticated guinea pigs differ

Domestication has a considerable effect on the behavior of animals. The dramatic change in their environment and provision of food alter the need for behaviors such as exploration. But what exactly is the difference?

How an internal clock gene can alter innate behaviors in mice

Some might argue that laboratory mice are not the same as wild mice, yet they remain capable of performing the innate, routine behaviors necessary to survive in natural environments, such as courtship and nest-building,

Why wolves cry out for their friends

Why do wolves howl? From research, movies, and even television series, we learn that wolves cry out to each other to facilitate the reassembling of a pack when members have strayed.

Why rats help other rats

As humans, we help each other because it is the right thing to do. We help our friends and our family. And of course we help strangers as well. Right?

How environmental enrichment reduces the effects of stroke

Some research requires animals to be studied in groups. For this it is very useful to have video tracking software that can automatically track the behavior of multiple animals simultaneously.