We verified that social isolation perturbs behavior in emotionality- and attentional-sensitive measures (e.g., open field, elevated plus maze, and prepulse inhibition test) (Tanaka et al., Hall et al., 1998, Powell et al., 2002). We also verified that handling produced beneficial behavioral consequences in these same measures (Fernandez-Teruel et al., 1990, Fernandez-Teruel et al., 1992, Krebs-Thomson et al., 2001). Consistent with previous reports, handling attenuates many isolation-induced behaviors, including hyperlocomotor activity, anxiety-like behavior (Present report; Gentsch et al., 1988, Gariépy et al., 2002) and deficits in sensorimotor gating (Present report; Krebs-Thomson et al., 2001, Rosa et al., 2005). Thus, social isolation produces relatively stable behavioral effects across laboratories.
