DISTINCT SOCIAL STRATEGIES EMERGE DURING SEQUENTIAL SPATIAL MEMORY TASK IN RATS

Understanding how spatial memory guides behavior in social contexts requires experimental paradigms that combine precise task structure with interactive environments. Here we present an automated, interactive environment (the Switchboard Test) designed to study sequential spatial memory in rats and to examine how such memory is expressed and adapted during social interaction. The system enables training and testing of location- and sequence-specific responses, with adjustable parameters including spatial layout, sequence length, cues, timing, and reward size. It is an open-field environment featuring a single reward dispensing area and nine equally spaced floor buttons (3 × 3 arrangement) that rats can press using a fraction of their body weight. Rats were individually trained to memorize a specific sequence of three button presses and became experts in the task. Expert rats (n = 16; two per cage across eight cages) were subsequently tested in pairs with cagemate experts (8 pairs, 9 days), with all possible expert–expert inter-cage pairings (112 pairs, 3 days each), and with naïve rats either from the same cage or from different cages (28 pairs each). Behavioral events were combined with video-based position tracking and individual identification using SLEAP and idTracker, enabling detailed analysis of joint behavior. Our apparatus and task enabled rats to deploy ethologically relevant social strategies, including cooperation, temporal segregation, and conflict resolution, which they must learn and refine over repeated interactions to succeed in a social context within an environment with a single reward dispensing area.