Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience · 4 authors, 4 centres
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Male Octodon degus subjected to prolonged chronic social isolation from neonatal age to adulthood showed increased anxiety-like behaviors, reduced social and working memory, and decreased multifractal complexity of metabolic rate compared to controls.
Male Octodon degus were assigned to either chronically isolated (CI, N=12) or control (CTRL, N=12) conditions from birth through adulthood. CI pups were separated daily for one hour from postnatal day 1 to 35, then individually housed. Behavioral tests included the novel object open field, light-dark box, three-chamber social test, and novel object recognition. Basal metabolic rate (BMR) and multifractal properties of oxygen consumption were also assessed. CI degus showed significantly increased anxiety-like behavior, reduced sociability and social recognition memory, and impaired working episodic memory. Multifractal complexity of the VO2 time series was reduced in CI animals, while BMR did not differ between groups. Multivariate analyses revealed clear separation of CI and CTRL animals across behavioral and physiological variables. Limitations include the use of a single sex, small sample size, and a brief steady-state BMR estimation window that may exclude ecologically relevant metabolic fluctuations.
