Spatial learning is a higher cognitive function allowing location recall of objects in space , that many animals share with humans.   Stress , a physical response to change in one’s environment, can affect learning and cognitive processes. Chickens, a highly social species, have been found to be motivated by social contact, and stressed when separated from familiar chickens.

     Early stress is the presence of a stressor early in development, where “early in development” generally means “between fertilization and sexual maturity.”   Modern research however, is beginning to suggest that the effects of stress may occur much earlier, to include the period of germ cell (cells that become the sperm and egg in reproduction) development in parental animals.

With the previously mentioned considerations, the goals of my project were to:

1) Determine if social isolation stress would cause deficits in spatial learning performance and,

2) Determine if the effects of stress are heritable.