Multidisciplinary Collaborative Project: Behavioral & Biological Effects of Chronic Social Stress

社会压力是一种普遍而持久的生活特征，具有重要的行为和生理影响。夏威夷大学行为神经生物学实验室和洛克菲勒大学神经内分泌学实验室之间的多学科研究合作旨在描述和分析这些影响。先前对实验室啮齿动物的研究表明，单周的压力期可以产生各种潜在的破坏性变化，包括：防御行为增加，社交和性行为减少；应激激素水平升高，通常限制应激激素作用的大脑机制受损；男性性激素产生的脑损伤和外周机制以及大脑神经化学系统的广泛变化。在最初授予期间的工作已经开始概述这些变化的时间进程，并描述其永久性或可逆性；理解应力级联动力学的关键因素。该计划将通过使用行为、大脑系统和激素措施，对压力效应的发展进行细致的分析。这将使人们能够比较这些变化的相对时间进程，从而能够就这些现象之间的关系提出更精确的假设。第二个重点将涉及男性性激素在支配-从属关系的发展和调节从属男性的应激反应中的作用。建议的工作的最后一个重点是分析以前（早期或最近）的压力经验在调节或加剧对从属的反应中的作用。这些研究，使用一个生态适宜的模型，将提供几个领域的详细信息，这些信息对于理解哺乳动物的应激反应及其广泛的行为和生理后果至关重要。

McEwen IBN-9815480 Social stress is a common and enduring feature of life with important behavioral and physiological effects. A multidisciplinary research collaboration between the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurobiology at the University of Hawaii and the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at the Rockefeller University is aimed at description and analysis of these effects. Previous work with laboratory rodents indicates that single, two-week stress periods can produce a variety of potentially damaging changes, including: increased defensive behavior and decreased social and sexual behavior; higher levels of stress hormones and impairment of brain mechanisms that normally limit stress hormone action; impairment of brain and peripheral mechanisms of male sex hormone production; and widespread changes in brain neurochemical systems. Work in an initial granting period has begun to outline the time course of these changes and to describe their permanence or reversibility; crucial factors in understanding the dynamics of the stress cascade. The proposed program will undertake a fine-grained analysis of the development of stress effects by using behavioral, brain system, and hormone measures taken at closely spaced intervals. This will enable comparison of the relative time course of these changes, enabling the creation of more precise hypotheses concerning the relationships among these phenomena. A second focus will involve the role of male sex hormones in the development of dominance-subordination relationships and in modulating the stress responses of subordinate males. The final focus of the proposed work is on analysis of the role of previous (early or recent) stressful experience in modulating or exacerbating the response to subordination. These studies, using an ecologically appropriate model, will provide detailed information in several areas that are crucial in understanding the mammalian stress response and its widespread behavioral and physiolog ical consequences.