Play fighting and the development of the social brain: The rat’s tale

Summary & key facts

Scientists reviewing lab rat studies say juvenile 'play fighting' helps shape the social brain. Research over the past 100+ years shows that when young rats are deprived of normal peer play during the juvenile period, adult rats show socio-cognitive problems and changes in neurons in the prefrontal cortex, especially the medial prefrontal cortex. The reviewers conclude play builds a flexible set of social skills needed to keep play reciprocal, not just training specific motor actions, but they note there are still gaps to understand.

Key facts:

• The paper is a 2023 review of studies on play fighting in laboratory rats.
• Researchers have debated the benefits of play fighting for more than 100 years.
• Studies report that depriving young rats of normal peer-to-peer play during the juvenile period leads to adults with socio-cognitive deficiencies.
• Those adult socio-cognitive problems are correlated with physiological and anatomical changes to neurons in the prefrontal cortex, especially the medial prefrontal cortex.
• Detailed analyses in rats suggest the important benefit of play is learning skills that keep play reciprocal, not practice of specific motor actions.
• The authors say the rat model is developed enough to guide comparative studies across other mammals, but they also state that gaps remain to be understood.

Topics

Memory and Neural Mechanisms Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior Stress Responses and Cortisol

Categories

Psychology Social Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Biology Cognition Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Computer science Developmental psychology Ecology Juvenile Linguistics Neuroscience Philosophy Prefrontal cortex Programming language Psychology Reciprocal Set (abstract data type)