Reichert Amanda N, Riddle Collin A, Quinn Jennifer J
Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience and Behavior, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA.
Dev Psychobiol. 2025 Sep;67(5):e70082. doi: 10.1002/dev.70082.
Social buffering may reduce the persistent impacts of acute early life stress (aELS) and, thus, has important implications for anxiety- and trauma-related disorders. First, we assessed whether aELS would induce maladaptive fear incubation in adult mice, a PTSD-like phenotype. Overall, animals showed incubation of fear memory in adulthood, independent of aELS condition. Next, we investigated whether social interaction with the dam and/or the littermates following the aELS session would eliminate adult fear incubation. Males demonstrated social buffering only if the dam was present, and females demonstrated social buffering only if the littermates were present. Finally, we assessed whether social buffering following aELS exposure reduces consolidation of the associative fear learning that occurs during the aELS session. Animals received aELS followed by isolation or social interaction (dam + littermates). Over the next four consecutive days, they received 30-min exposures to the context (test/extinction). There were no differences between isolation and social interaction on contextual fear memory expression or its extinction. Taken together, these results indicate that social buffering reduces the impact of nonassociative processes during aELS on subsequent adult fear memory in a sex-dependent manner and further supports social buffering as an important intervention following early trauma experiences.
社会缓冲可能会减轻急性早期生活应激（aELS）的持续影响，因此，对焦虑症和创伤相关疾病具有重要意义。首先，我们评估了aELS是否会在成年小鼠中诱发适应不良的恐惧潜伏期延长，这是一种类似创伤后应激障碍的表型。总体而言，无论aELS情况如何，动物在成年期都表现出恐惧记忆的潜伏期延长。接下来，我们研究了在aELS实验后与母鼠和/或同窝幼崽的社交互动是否会消除成年期的恐惧潜伏期延长。雄性只有在母鼠在场时才表现出社会缓冲，而雌性只有在同窝幼崽在场时才表现出社会缓冲。最后，我们评估了aELS暴露后的社会缓冲是否会减少在aELS实验期间发生的联想恐惧学习的巩固。动物接受aELS后，要么隔离，要么进行社交互动（母鼠+同窝幼崽）。在接下来的连续四天里，它们接受30分钟的环境暴露（测试/消退）。在情境恐惧记忆表达或其消退方面，隔离和社交互动之间没有差异。综上所述，这些结果表明，社会缓冲以性别依赖的方式减少了aELS期间非联想过程对随后成年恐惧记忆的影响，并进一步支持社会缓冲作为早期创伤经历后的一种重要干预措施。
