[Effect of positive and negative social experiences on sucrose solution intake by male mice]

Hedonic reactions to various rewards play a key role in various forms of motivated behavior. The influence of repeated experience of social victories or defeats in daily agonistic interactions between male mice on voluntary consumption of 1% sucrose solution supplemented with vanillin (0.2%) was studied. Intake of sucrose solution was shown to be decreased in the winners and losers exposed to social confrontations as compared with the controls. Three days of deprivation restored the intake of sucrose solution to the control level in the winners and failed to restore the baseline intake in the losers. The results imply that similar reaction of animals to a hedonic non-drug reinforcer may have different motivational origin depending on positive or negative social experience.