The social interaction test provides a standard paradigm for the study of social interaction in animals and has been extensively used for research on anxiety, aggression, and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia in rodents. When applied to the study of anxiety, two rodents that are unfamiliar to each other are simultaneously placed in an open field and anxiety-related behaviors (submissive or freezing behavior) are recorded. When used for investigation of aggression, detailed behaviors such as kicking, biting, or chasing are monitored. Finally, when used for research on schizophrenia, the effects of drugs on deficits in social interaction are commonly investigated. Important parameters for the latter are the distance between animals and the percentage of time the animals were in proximity of each other. No matter for what purpose you are investigating social interaction in rodents, our software and hardware help you out. EthoVision 3.1 automatically tracks the paths of multiple animals and calculates parameters such as the distance between those animals. With The Observer XT detailed social behaviors can be manually scored and analyzed. MatMan can be used to further analyze social dominance hierarchies. Ultimately, our open fields provide the ideal environments to test socially interacting animals.

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