Grammer Jordan, Valles Rene, Bowles Alexis, Zelikowsky Moriel
Department of Neurobiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Department of Neurobiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Cell Rep Methods. 2025 Aug 18;5(8):101108. doi: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2025.101108. Epub 2025 Jul 17.
Social aversion is a key feature of numerous mental health disorders, yet we lack adequate behavioral tools to interrogate social aversion in model systems. Here, we developed a behavioral task-selective access to unrestricted social interaction (SAUSI)-that integrates elements of social motivation, hesitancy, and free interaction to enable a multiplexed assessment of social aversion. Using SAUSI, we discovered that prolonged social isolation induces social aversion in mice-an effect largely driven by increases in social fear coupled with decreases in social motivation. Application of deep learning approaches revealed unique behavioral motifs underlying the socially aversive state produced by isolation, demonstrating the compatibility of modern computational pipelines with SAUSI. Last, we demonstrated that unique forms of social aversion can be induced by distinct stressors, highlighting the versatility of SAUSI. Our findings debut a fresh task for the behavioral toolbox-one that offers an integrative approach for assessing social aversion.
社交厌恶是众多心理健康障碍的一个关键特征,但我们缺乏足够的行为工具来在模型系统中探究社交厌恶。在此,我们开发了一种行为任务——无限制社交互动的选择性访问(SAUSI),它整合了社交动机、犹豫和自由互动等要素,以实现对社交厌恶的多重评估。使用SAUSI,我们发现长期的社会隔离会在小鼠中诱发社交厌恶——这种效应很大程度上是由社交恐惧增加以及社交动机降低所驱动的。深度学习方法的应用揭示了隔离所产生的社交厌恶状态背后独特的行为模式,证明了现代计算管道与SAUSI的兼容性。最后,我们证明了不同的应激源可以诱发独特形式的社交厌恶,突出了SAUSI的多功能性。我们的研究结果为行为工具箱引入了一项新任务——一种为评估社交厌恶提供综合方法的任务。