Characterizing risky play-like behaviour in juvenile versus young adult rats

Juvenile versus young adult male Rattus norvegicus show quantifiable risky play-like behaviour in an elevated, unstable apparatus, captured by location and risky event ethograms.

• Why it matters: Risky play—voluntary engagement with uncertainty and manageable physical risk—has been emphasized in children, but comparable ethological forms in non-human animals are not well characterized.
• What they did: Juvenile and young adult male Lister Hooded rats were repeatedly tested in a custom environment with elevated, unstable structures, and behaviour was scored using two complementary ethograms.
• The result: The study establishes a behavioural framework to identify and quantify risky play-like behaviour in rodents, enabling future work on its developmental and neurobiological significance.

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