Social stress contagion in rats: Behavioural, autonomic and neuroendocrine correlates
Social stress contagion in rats: Behavioural, autonomic and neuroendocrine correlates
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DOI：
10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.05.017
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发表时间：
2017-08-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Sgoifo, Andrea
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Camevali, Luca;Montano, Nicola;Sgoifo, Andrea
与个人生活压力暴露相关的负面情绪后果会影响社会伴侣的情绪状态。在这项研究中，我们描述了一个实验大鼠模型的社会压力传染及其对社会行为和心脏自主神经和神经内分泌功能的影响。将成年雄性Wistar大鼠成对饲养，并将一只动物（指定为“示范者”（DEM））在单独的房间中通过攻击性雄性野生型大鼠进行社会失败应激（STR）或仅暴露于不熟悉的空笼（对照条件，CTR），每天一次，连续4天。我们评估了与STR DEM同居对行为、心脏自主神经和神经内分泌结果的影响。反复的社会压力后，STR DEM大鼠在一个新的社会背景下进行测试时，CTR DEM大鼠相比，表现出明显的社会回避的迹象。有趣的是，与CTR OBBS相比，他们的cagglutinastSTR OBBS也显示出更高水平的社交回避。此外，STR OBS大鼠表现出更高的心率和更大的心脏自主平衡向交感神经患病率（由心率变异性分析指数）后，立即与他们的STR DEM的第一次统一，与对照条件相比。随着时间的推移，这种增强的心脏自主反应性会习惯。最后，STR OBBS在实验方案结束时显示出与CTR OBBS相比升高的血浆皮质酮水平。这些研究结果表明，同居的DEM大鼠，经历了反复的社会失败的压力，大大破坏了社会行为，并诱导短期持续的心脏自主神经激活和下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴过度活跃的OBS大鼠，从而表明情绪状态匹配的OBS和DEM大鼠之间。我们的结论是，这种啮齿动物模型可以进一步利用调查慢性社会应激条件下的社会伙伴之间的负性情感分享的神经生物学基础。
The negative emotional consequences associated with life stress exposure in an individual can affect the emotional state of social partners. In this study, we describe an experimental rat model of social stress contagion and its effects on social behaviour and cardiac autonomic and neuroendocrine functions. Adult male Wistar rats were pair-housed and one animal (designated as "demonstrator" (DEM)) was submitted to either social defeat stress (STR) by an aggressive male Wild-type rat in a separate room or just exposed to an unfamiliar empty cage (control condition, CTR), once a day for 4 consecutive days. We evaluated the influence of cohabitation with a STR DEM on behavioural, cardiac autonomic and neuroendocrine outcomes in the cagemate (defined "observer" (OBS)). After repeated social stress, STR DEM rats showed clear signs of social avoidance when tested in a new social context compared to CTR DEM rats. Interestingly, also their cagemate STR OBSs showed higher levels of social avoidance compared to CTR OBSs. Moreover, STR OBS rats exhibited a higher heart rate and a larger shift of cardiac autonomic balance toward sympathetic prevalence (as indexed by heart rate variability analysis) immediately after the first reunification with their STR DEMs, compared to the control condition. This heightened cardiac autonomic responsiveness habituated over time. Finally, STR OBSs showed elevated plasma corticosterone levels at the end of the experimental protocol compared to CTR OBSs. These findings demonstrate that cohabitation with a DEM rat, which has experienced repeated social defeat stress, substantially disrupts social behaviour and induces short-lasting cardiac autonomic activation and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis hyperactivity in the OBS rat, thus suggesting emotional state-matching between the OBS and the DEM rats. We conclude that this rodent model may be further exploited for investigating the neurobiological bases of negative affective sharing between social partners under chronic social stress conditions.