Dyadic social interaction of C57BL/6 mice versus interaction with a toy mouse: conditioned place preference/aversion, substrain differences, and no development of a hierarchy.

Impaired social interaction is a hallmark symptom of many psychiatric diseases, including dependence syndromes (substance use disorders). Helping the addict reorient her/his behavior away from the drug of abuse toward social interaction would be of considerable therapeutic benefit. To study the neural basis of such a reorientation, we have developed several animal models in which the attractiveness of a dyadic (i.