Rats reared with limited access to a play partner during the juvenile period develop into adults with impairments in various cognitive, emotional, and social skills. The present study assesses the consequences of play deprivation on adult social skills in female Long Evans (LE) rats that were reared with a low-playing Fischer 344 rat over the juvenile period. As adults, their social skills were assessed using the stranger paradigm, by pairing the deprived LE rats with a novel LE partner in a neutral arena. While the deprived rat engages its partner in play there were alterations in key aspects of play, such as reduced pinning and a longer latency to begin playing, that suggest there are impairments in the social ability of the deprived rat. Most notable were the changes in the behaviour of the typically reared partner, a reduction in the amount of play it initiated and fewer actions that produced reciprocal and prolonged interactions. The changes in the behaviour of the normally reared partner suggest that it detected subtle changes in the play deprived LE rats. These findings support the hypothesis that peer-peer play experiences during the juvenile period are important for the development of socio-cognitive skills.

在幼年期与游戏伙伴接触有限的老鼠会发育成在各种认知、情感和社交技能上都有障碍的成年老鼠。本研究评估了在幼年期间与低玩 Fischer 344 大鼠一起饲养的雌性 Long Evans (LE) 大鼠的成年社交技能的游戏剥夺的后果。作为成年人，他们的社交技能使用陌生人范式进行评估，方法是将被剥夺的 LE 大鼠与一个新的 LE 伙伴在中立的舞台上配对。当被剥夺的老鼠与其伙伴一起玩耍时，游戏的关键方面发生了变化，例如减少了固定和更长的开始玩耍的延迟，这表明被剥夺的老鼠的社交能力存在损害。最值得注意的是通常抚养的伴侣行为的变化，减少它发起的游戏量，减少产生互惠和长期互动的行动。正常饲养伙伴行为的变化表明，它检测到缺乏玩耍的 LE 大鼠的细微变化。这些发现支持了这样一个假设，即青少年时期的同伴游戏经历对社会认知技能的发展很重要。