Department of Basic Psychological Processes and their Development, School of Psychology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain.
Department of Basic Psychological Processes and their Development, School of Psychology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain.
Physiol Behav. 2023 Oct 15;270:114306. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114306. Epub 2023 Jul 27.
Extensive literature has reported a link between social stress and mental health. In this complex relationship, individual strategies for coping with social stress are thought to have a possible modulating effect, with sociability being a key factor. Despite the higher incidence of affective disorders in females and sex-related neurochemical differences, female populations have been understudied. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to analyze the behavioral, neuroendocrine, and neurochemical effects of stress in female OF1 mice, paying special attention to social connectedness (female mice with high vs low sociability). To this end, subjects were exposed to the Chronic Social Instability Stress (CSIS) model for four weeks. Although female mice exposed to CSIS had increased arousal, there was no evidence of depressive-like behavior. Neither did exposure to CSIS affect corticosterone levels, although it did increase the MR/GR ratio by decreasing GR expression. Female mice exposed to CSIS had higher noradrenaline and dopamine levels in the hippocampus and striatum respectively, with a lower monoaminergic turnover, resulting in an increased arousal. CSIS increased serotonin levels in both the hippocampus and striatum. Similarly, CSIS was found to reduce kynurenic acid, 3-HK, and IDO and iNOS enzyme levels in the hippocampus. Interestingly, the observed decrease in IDO synthesis and the increased serotonin and dopamine levels in the striatum were only found in subjects with high sociability. These highly sociable female mice also had significantly lower levels of noradrenaline in the striatum after CSIS application. Overall, our model has produced neuroendocrine and neurochemical but not behavioral changes, so it has not allowed us to study sociability in depth. Therefore, a model that induces both molecular and behavioral phenotypes should be applied to determine the role of sociability.
大量文献报道了社会压力与心理健康之间的关系。在这种复杂的关系中，个体应对社会压力的策略被认为可能具有调节作用，而社交能力是一个关键因素。尽管女性患情感障碍的发病率更高，且存在与性别相关的神经化学差异，但对女性群体的研究却很少。因此，本研究旨在分析应激对雌性 OF1 小鼠的行为、神经内分泌和神经化学的影响，并特别关注社交能力（高社交性和低社交性的雌性小鼠）。为此，研究对象被暴露于慢性社会压力不稳定（CSIS）模型中 4 周。尽管暴露于 CSIS 的雌性小鼠觉醒度增加，但没有出现类似抑郁的行为。CSIS 也没有影响皮质酮水平，尽管它通过降低 GR 表达增加了 MR/GR 比值。暴露于 CSIS 的雌性小鼠海马和纹状体中的去甲肾上腺素和多巴胺水平分别升高，单胺能转化降低，导致觉醒度增加。CSIS 增加了海马体和纹状体中的 5-羟色胺水平。同样，CSIS 被发现降低了海马体中的犬尿氨酸、3-HK 和 IDO 以及 iNOS 酶水平。有趣的是，仅在高社交性的研究对象中观察到 IDO 合成减少和纹状体中 5-羟色胺和多巴胺水平增加。这些高社交性的雌性小鼠在 CSIS 应用后纹状体中的去甲肾上腺素水平也显著降低。总的来说，我们的模型产生了神经内分泌和神经化学变化，但没有产生行为变化，因此我们无法深入研究社交能力。因此，应该应用一种既能诱导分子表型又能诱导行为表型的模型来确定社交能力的作用。
