Individual mice were tested in the three-chamber box over three trials in a protocol adapted from Yang et al. (2011). In trial 1, the mice were habituated to the empty box over 10 min. In trial 2, an unfamiliar sex-matched juvenile conspecific mouse was placed in a wire containment cup on either the left or right chamber (counter balanced within each group), and an unfamiliar mouse-like object (tally counter, Appleton Woods GC101) was placed in a wire containment cup in the opposite chamber. Test mice could explore the box for 10 min. Social preference was measured as . In trial 3, the unfamiliar object was replaced with a novel unfamiliar conspecific, and the test was run for another 10 min. Social novelty preference was measured as .
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