Effects of chronic social stress in both social interaction and expression of serotonin 5-HT1A receptors in the paraventricular and the supraoptic nuclei of the hypothalamus.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that animals exposed to social stress decrease their social interaction with conspecifics in addition to changes in their neurobiological responses. Knowing that serotonin 5-HT1A receptors are involved in aggressive behaviors and behaviors related to anxiety, the goal of this study was to identify how chronic social stress affects social interaction and the expression of the serotonin 5-HT1A receptors in both the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and the supraoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus. The results of this study showed that Wistar rats exposed to chronic social stress had less social interactions with novel conspecifics and less expression of serotonin 5-HT1A receptors only in the PVN, suggesting less aggressive behavior and an increase of behaviors related to anxiety, such as avoidance.

Neural Circuits Underlying Social Fear in Rodents: An Integrative Computational Model

“…This is possibly due to the alterations induced by social fear conditioning inside the main oxytocinergic nuclei. Indeed, it has been observed that stress has a detrimental impact on the PVT, inducing a reduction of the expression of serotonin 5-HT1A receptors (Florez et al, 2017 ). Future studies are required to elucidate the involvement of this pathway on social fear conditioning and extinction, especially in relation to the presence or absence of persistent neurons in VMHvl.…”

Unpredictable subchronic stress induces depressive-like behavior: Behavioral and neurochemical evidences.

“…As a way to develop new drugs, which can meet the needs of the current therapies used and understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of the disease not yet elucidated, animal models have become an important tool. Examples of such models for the study of MDD include learned helplessness, social defeat, and chronic stress (Caldarone et al, 2015; Farooq et al, 2012; Florez et al, 2017; Li et al, 2009). The chronic stress model was first developed in the 1980s and has been one of the most widely used models involving depressive activity, mimicking stressful life events that result in symptoms similar to MDD.…”