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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2009 Jan 18;12(2):200–209. doi: 10.1038/nn.2257

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Social isolation induces behavioral deficits. (a) An increase in ejaculation latency was observed in socially isolated animals (socially isolated/control, SI/CON) compared with their double-housed controls (CON/CON). Under chronic imipramine (IMI) administration, this sexual behavior deficit in socially isolated animals was reversed (SI/IMI), whereas the same treatment induced a deficit in ejaculation latency for the double-housed animals (CON/IMI) (significant overall effect of drug: F1,48 =– 4.81, P < 0.05; significant interaction of drug on housing: F1,48 = 24.93, P < 0.001, n = 8–17 animals per group, * indicates significantly different (P < 0.05) from CON/CON). (b) Chronic imipramine reversed the anxiety-like phenotype of isolated animals in the elevated plus maze, but did not affect control animals (significant effect of drug on isolated animals, F1,43 = 13.09. P < 0.01, n = 10–14 animals per group). (c,d) The socially isolated animals (SI/CON) showed decreases in sucrose intake (F1,22 = 7.512, P < 0.01, n = 12, corrected for multiple comparisons; c) and sucrose preference (F1,22 = 7.335, P < 0.05, n = 12, corrected for multiple comparisons; d) compared with double-housed control (CON) animals. (e) The chronic administration of imipramine abolished the difference in sucrose intake between socially isolated animals (SI/IMI) and their double-housed controls (CON/IMI) (F4,48 = 0.404, nonsignificant (n.s.), n = 6–8; e) and also abolished their differences in sucrose preference (F4,48 = 1.366, n.s., n = 6–8; f).