Neural base of appropriate behavioral selection to situation in social rodent Octodon degus

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The purpose of this study was to develop the behavioral test which assesses the individual recognition, intentional recognition and behavioral control in rodents, Octodon degus. And we tried to clarify the neural bases of these cognitive functions. Our behavioral test suggested that degu's individual recognition was based on familiarity but not kinship such as genetic cues. Degus recognized familiar partner using visual cues as well as direct contact behavior. The performance of T-maze task showed that degus took more easily cue of their own movement than social visual cue. However, the possibilities that degus could have the potential to take social cue also remained. Other test about the effects of partner on vigilance behavior suggested that the presence of partner could attenuate the anxiety induced by alarm calls. Our lesion study in rats showed that orbitofrontal cortex was related to flexible behavior control.