Pavlovian conditioning of social exploration in adult female rats.

Social conditioned place preference (SCPP) studies show that the reward value of social interaction is amenable to the laws of associative learning, such that it becomes associated with the physical properties of the context. However, social interaction can be initiated and maintained by a variety of motivations, such as the exploration of a novel conspecific, aggression, mutual grooming and mating-like actions. In order to study whether social exploration is rewarding, we used a conventional Pavlovian conditioning procedure in which access to a restrained same-sex rat served as a reward. Three dependent variables in two experiments showed that the reward value of social exploration becomes conditioned to a transient cue, and it is also subject to extinction and spontaneous recovery. The results may help to elucidate the mixed results obtained with SCPP procedures.