A Critical Period for Social Isolation in the Rat

Rats housed in social isolation show heightened levels of object-contact in an open-field and are slower than socially-housed controls to emerge from a small enclosure into an unfamiliar environment. Isolation between 25 and 45 days of age produced an irreversible effect upon object contact but had no lasting effect if between 16 and 25 days or after 45 days. In contrast to object contact, emergence was affected by isolation at any age and the effect was reversed by subsequent social housing. Thus the effects of isolation upon object contact and upon emergence apparently do not depend upon a single underlying variable.