Journal
WORLD JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY
Volume 15, Issue 1, Pages 36-48Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.3109/15622975.2012.745604
Keywords
Stress-related disorders; Juvenile stress; sex differences; behavioural profiling; animal models
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Funding
- Institute for the Study of Affective Neuroscience (ISAN) at the University of Haifa
- USAMRMC [10071009]
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Objectives. This study assessed the interactive effect of two risk factors: Juvenile stress and sex in the long-term consequences of Juvenile stress in male and female rats. Methods. Rats were exposed to Juvenile stress and to additional stress in adulthood. Measurements of anxiety and depressive-like behaviours were assessed in relation to each stress exposure and Sex-specific sets of criteria in order to characterize individual profiles of altered behaviours. Results. While both male and female rats were affected by exposure to Juvenile stress, sex difference were evident in saccharine preference, coping with the stressful challenge of the two-way shuttle avoidance task, and on Adult stress induced changes in saccharine preference. Profiling altered behaviours revealed sex differences also in the prevalence of rats exhibiting different categories of Affected behaviours, indicating that female rats are more susceptible to the long-term effects of Juvenile stress and to the immediate effects of Adulthood stress. Additionally, the prevalence of Affected animals among Juvenile + Adulthood stress was similar, yet the profile of altered behaviours was significantly different. Conclusions. The Behavioural Profiling approach presented here is of importance to understanding gender differences in the aetiology of predisposition to stress-related disorders, and of gender symptomatology differences in stress-related disorders.
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