Figure 1:
Experimental design for Experiments 2 and 3. Male and female hamsters were either socially housed or socially isolated for three weeks. In Experiment 2, they were anesthetized and a cannula was stereotaxically aimed at the lateral septum and given one week to recover from surgery. Ten minutes after receiving either saline or muscimol, hamsters were placed in a neutral arena with a same-sex smaller (100–110g) stimulus hamster for five minutes. Subsequent drug injections and behavior testing occurred no less than four days apart. In Experiment 3, after four weeks of social or single housing, tissue samples from the septum were collected and processed for δ and γ2 GABAA receptor mRNA expression.