Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice
Early life adversity (ELA) heightens the risk for anxiety disorders (which are characterized by heightened fear and avoidance behaviors), with females being twice as likely as males to develop pathology. Pavlovian fear conditioning tasks have been used to study possible mechanisms supporting endophe...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Stress |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10253890.2023.2244598 |
| _version_ | 1797404021415215104 |
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| author | Gabriela Manzano Nieves Marilyn Bravo Kevin G. Bath |
| author_facet | Gabriela Manzano Nieves Marilyn Bravo Kevin G. Bath |
| author_sort | Gabriela Manzano Nieves |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Early life adversity (ELA) heightens the risk for anxiety disorders (which are characterized by heightened fear and avoidance behaviors), with females being twice as likely as males to develop pathology. Pavlovian fear conditioning tasks have been used to study possible mechanisms supporting endophenotypes of pathology. Identification of sex and ELA selective effects on the nature of behavioral responding in these paradigms may provide a unique window into coping strategies in response to learned fear to guide more mechanistic studies. The goals of this study were two-fold; First, to test if male and female mice employed different coping strategies in response to threat learning using different conditioning parameters (low, medium, and high intensity foot shocks). Second, to test if ELA in the form of limited bedding and nesting (LBN) altered the behavioral response of mice to conditioning. Mice received 6 tone/foot-shock pairings at one of three different foot-shock intensities (0.35 mA; 0.57 mA; 0.7 mA). Freezing, darting, and foot-shock reactivity were measured across trials. During conditioning, control-reared female mice exhibited significantly higher rates of darting behavior compared to control males at nearly all shock intensities tested. LBN rearing decreased the proportion of darting females to levels observed in males. Thus, ELA in the form of LBN significantly diminished the recruitment of active versus passive coping strategies in female mice but did not generally change male responding. Additional work will be required to understand the neural basis of these behavioral effects. Findings extending from this work have the potential to shed light on how ELA impacts trajectories of regional brain development with implications for sex-selective risk for behavioral endophenotypes associated with pathology and possibly symptom presentation. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T02:47:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-297632d86f124a2d8d6f3ff2d6df025c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1025-3890 1607-8888 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T02:47:05Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Stress |
| spelling | doaj.art-297632d86f124a2d8d6f3ff2d6df025c2023-12-05T16:09:50ZengTaylor & Francis GroupStress1025-38901607-88882023-01-0126110.1080/10253890.2023.22445982244598Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in miceGabriela Manzano Nieves0Marilyn Bravo1Kevin G. Bath2Department of Psychiatry, Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, and Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell MedicineDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, University of CaliforniaDivision of Developmental Neuroscience, New York State Psychiatric Institute/Research Foundation for Mental HygieneEarly life adversity (ELA) heightens the risk for anxiety disorders (which are characterized by heightened fear and avoidance behaviors), with females being twice as likely as males to develop pathology. Pavlovian fear conditioning tasks have been used to study possible mechanisms supporting endophenotypes of pathology. Identification of sex and ELA selective effects on the nature of behavioral responding in these paradigms may provide a unique window into coping strategies in response to learned fear to guide more mechanistic studies. The goals of this study were two-fold; First, to test if male and female mice employed different coping strategies in response to threat learning using different conditioning parameters (low, medium, and high intensity foot shocks). Second, to test if ELA in the form of limited bedding and nesting (LBN) altered the behavioral response of mice to conditioning. Mice received 6 tone/foot-shock pairings at one of three different foot-shock intensities (0.35 mA; 0.57 mA; 0.7 mA). Freezing, darting, and foot-shock reactivity were measured across trials. During conditioning, control-reared female mice exhibited significantly higher rates of darting behavior compared to control males at nearly all shock intensities tested. LBN rearing decreased the proportion of darting females to levels observed in males. Thus, ELA in the form of LBN significantly diminished the recruitment of active versus passive coping strategies in female mice but did not generally change male responding. Additional work will be required to understand the neural basis of these behavioral effects. Findings extending from this work have the potential to shed light on how ELA impacts trajectories of regional brain development with implications for sex-selective risk for behavioral endophenotypes associated with pathology and possibly symptom presentation.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10253890.2023.2244598stressfear conditioningdartingsex differencesearly life adversity |
| spellingShingle | Gabriela Manzano Nieves Marilyn Bravo Kevin G. Bath Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice Stress stress fear conditioning darting sex differences early life adversity |
| title | Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice |
| title_full | Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice |
| title_fullStr | Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice |
| title_full_unstemmed | Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice |
| title_short | Early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice |
| title_sort | early life adversity ablates sex differences in active versus passive threat responding in mice |
| topic | stress fear conditioning darting sex differences early life adversity |
| url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10253890.2023.2244598 |
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