Departamento de Psicología, Instituto de Neurociencias del Principado de Asturias (INEUROPA), Universidad de Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo s/n, 33003, Oviedo, Spain.
IIS Aragón, Departamento de Psicología y Sociología, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.
Behav Brain Res. 2019 Jun 3;365:170-177. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2019.03.011. Epub 2019 Mar 6.
Social isolation during adulthood is a frequent problem that leads to a large variety of adverse emotional and cognitive effects. However, most of the social isolation rodent procedures begin the separation early post-weaning. This work explores locomotor activity, anxiety-like behaviour, and spatial working memory after twelve weeks of adult social isolation. In order to study the functional contribution of selected brain areas following a working memory task, we assessed neuronal metabolic activity through quantitative cytochrome oxidase histochemistry and c-Fos immunohistochemistry. Behaviourally, we found that isolated animals (IS) showed anxiety-like behaviour and worse working memory than controls, whereas motor functions were preserved. Moreover, IS rats showed lower levels of learning-related c-Fos immunoreactivity, compared to controls, in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventral tegmental area (VTA), and nucleus accumbens shell. In addition, the IS group showed lower neuronal metabolic activity in the mPFC, VTA, and CA1 subfield of the hippocampus. These results indicate that twelve weeks of social isolation in adult rats leads to different behavioural and brain alterations, and they highlight the importance of social support, not only in development, but also in adulthood.
成年期的社交隔离是一个常见的问题，会导致各种不良的情绪和认知影响。然而，大多数社交隔离啮齿动物程序都是在断奶后早期开始分离。本研究探讨了十二周成年社交隔离后运动活动、焦虑样行为和空间工作记忆。为了研究在工作记忆任务后选定脑区的功能贡献，我们通过定量细胞色素氧化酶组织化学和 c-Fos 免疫组织化学评估了神经元代谢活性。行为上，我们发现与对照组相比，孤立动物（IS）表现出焦虑样行为和更差的工作记忆，而运动功能保持不变。此外，与对照组相比，IS 大鼠在中前额叶皮层（mPFC）、腹侧被盖区（VTA）和伏隔核壳中与学习相关的 c-Fos 免疫反应性较低。此外，IS 组在 mPFC、VTA 和海马 CA1 亚区的神经元代谢活性较低。这些结果表明，成年大鼠十二周的社交隔离导致不同的行为和大脑改变，并强调了社交支持的重要性，不仅在发育过程中，而且在成年期也是如此。
