Involvement of various senses in responses to individual housing in laboratory albino mice: 2. The tactile sense

Abstract

‘Isolation’ of male mice to induce aggressiveness as practised in most laboratories does not preclude communication between neighbouring conspecifics. Indeed, a companion paper (Brain el al., 1982) has already shown the importance of olfactory cues in this connexion. The experiments here examine the possible role of the mystacial vibrissae in the control of ‘isolation-induced’ social conflict in male mice. Young and mature, naive and experienced male fighters were subjected to removal of vibrissae. In subsequent tests with ‘standard opponents’, removal of the vibrissae appeared to have only minor effects on subsequent social investigation and fighting. Consequently, in this species tactile influences seem less important than olfactory in modulating isolation-induced aggression.