Social isolation during adolescence impairs cognitive flexibility in females. (A) Experimental time line. (B) Tracked behavior (gray) of a representative control and stressed female mouse before the shock was turned on (pretraining), during the last trial of initial training (trial 6), and during the first trial of conflict training. With the exception of pretraining, red circles indicate where the animal was shocked during each trial. (C) Social isolation did not affect the number of times female mice entered the shock zone during initial training. (D) There were no group differences in latency to first enter the shock zone after 24 h of retention. (E) During initial training, stressed females spent more time to the left of the shock zone (i.e., CCW) than controls. (F,G) During the first trial of conflict training, stressed females entered the new shock zone more and spent more time within that shock zone than controls. n = 7 per group. Data are represented as mean ± SEM. (*) P < 0.05.
