[The dynamics of behavioral changes in mice induced by social isolation]

Various behavioural patterns such as spontaneous locomotion, open-field behaviour and aggressivity undergo typical changes in socially isolated mice. Each of them shows a specific course depending on the duration of isolation. Differences in time courses and quantitative changes demonstrate that not only a general mechanism such as decreased arousal threshold is responsible for the complex alterations. It seems that many different mechanisms in the CNS underly the isolation syndrome, but the functional connections between the different alterations are unknown.