Post-weaning social isolation impairs observational fear conditioning

Many mammals can utilize social information to learn by observation of conspecifics (social learning). Social learning of fear is expected to be especially advantageous for survival. However, disruption of social development in early life can impair social cognition and might also be expected to disrupt social learning. Social isolation during a critical period of adolescence disrupts social development. The purpose of this study was to determine whether disruption of social development through post-weaning social isolation leads to impairments of social fear learning. Rats were reared in isolation or pair-housed from immediately post-weaning, for 3 weeks. Social fear learning in rats was acquired by observation of tone-footshock pairings administered to a conspecific. Isolation-reared rats displayed less conditioned freezing than pair-housed rats when tested the next day. This reduction of conditioned freezing was correlated with conspecific-oriented behaviors during conditioning, was measured despite similarities in demonstrator behaviors, and occurred despite a manipulation that equalized freezing during conditioning between the pair-housed and isolation-reared rats. The results could not be explained by abnormal sensitization to a repeated tone or deficits in freezing or direct fear conditioning. These results demonstrate that observational fear conditioning is impaired by social isolation, and provide a model to study impaired social affective learning. Impaired social cognition, manifested as inability to recognize or appropriately interpret social cues, is a symptom of several psychiatric disorders. Better understanding of the mechanisms of impaired social fear learning can lead to novel treatments for social cognition symptoms of psychiatric disorders.

► Freezing response is acquired by observation of tone-shock pairings to conspecific.
► Correlated with orientation toward conspecific during conditioning.
► Observational fear conditioning is impaired by rearing in social isolation.
► Impairment not due to impaired freezing or associative learning disability.
► Understanding cause may lead to new treatment approach for socio-cognitive symptoms.