Social isolation can have severe health consequences for the rest of a subject’s life. The responsible circuits weren’t studied enough, and there is a general lack of information. In this research we focused on the Pre-Frontal Cortex, a brain region responsible for decision making, social behavior, language comprehension and so on. We hypothesized that the PFC is the brain region responsible for social behavior following social isolation. We conducted experiments on mice we socially isolated, and silenced specific parts of their PFCs. The results have shown that male mice completely recover from social isolation in two weeks, while the females do not. In addition, we found that the Insular Cortex has a large role in the regulation of social behavior that follows social isolation.
Maya Krizhanovsky
18 years
| Stand | 72 |
| Project | Medicine-09 |
| Country | Israel |
