Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Abramson Research Center, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4399, USA.
Brain Res. 2010 Jul 9;1343:83-92. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.04.068. Epub 2010 May 28.
In adolescence, gender differences in rates of affective disorders emerge. For both adolescent boys and girls, peer relationships are the primary source of life stressors though adolescent girls are more sensitive to such stressors. Social stressors are also powerful stressors for non-human social species like rodents. In a rat model, we examined how social isolation during adolescence impacts stress reactivity and specific neural substrates in adult male and female rats. Rats were isolated during adolescence by single housing from day 30 to 50 of age and control rats were group housed. On day 50, isolated rats and control rats were re-housed in same-treatment same-sex groups. Adult female rats isolated as adolescents exhibited increased adrenal responses to acute and to repeated stress and exhibited increased hypothalamic vasopressin mRNA and BDNF mRNA in the CA3 hippocampal subfield. In contrast, adult male rats isolated as adolescents exhibited a lower corticosterone response to acute stress, exhibited a reduced state of anxiety as assessed in the elevated plus maze and reduced Orexin mRNA compared to adult males group-housed as adolescents. These data point to a markedly different impact of isolation experienced in adolescence on endocrine and behavioral endpoints in males compared to females and identify specific neural substrates that may mediate the long-lasting effects of stress in adolescence.
在青春期，情感障碍的发生率出现了性别差异。对于青少年男孩和女孩来说，同伴关系是生活压力的主要来源，尽管少女对这些压力源更为敏感。社会压力源也是啮齿类等非人类社会物种的强大压力源。在大鼠模型中，我们研究了青春期的社会隔离如何影响成年雄性和雌性大鼠的应激反应和特定的神经基质。大鼠在 30 至 50 日龄时被单独隔离饲养，而对照组大鼠则被群体饲养。在第 50 天，隔离大鼠和对照组大鼠被重新安置在相同处理的同性别组中。青春期被隔离的雌性大鼠表现出对急性和重复应激的肾上腺反应增加，并表现出下丘脑加压素 mRNA 和 CA3 海马亚区 BDNF mRNA 增加。相比之下，青春期被隔离的雄性大鼠表现出急性应激时皮质酮反应降低，在高架十字迷宫中表现出焦虑状态降低，与青春期被群体饲养的成年雄性大鼠相比，食欲素 mRNA 减少。这些数据表明，与女性相比，青春期经历的隔离对男性的内分泌和行为终点有明显不同的影响，并确定了可能介导青春期应激的长期影响的特定神经基质。
