Social overcrowding as a chronic stress model that increases adiposity in mice

PSYCHONEUROENDOCRINOLOGY

卷:51

Article

Lin, En-Ju D.^1,2  Sun, Meng^1,2  Choi, Eugene Y.^1,2  Magee, Daniel^1,2  Stets, Colin W.^1,2  During, Matthew J.^1,2,3 

[1] Ohio State Univ, Canc Genet & Neurosci Program, Dept Mol Virol Immunol & Med Genet, Columbus, OH 43210 USA

[2] Ohio State Univ, Ctr Comprehens Canc, Columbus, OH 43210 USA

[3] Univ Auckland, Funct Genom & Translat Neurosci Lab, Dept Mol Med & Pathol, Auckland 1, New Zealand

关键词: C57BL/6 mice;    Social stress;    Obesity;    Anxiety;    White adipose tissue (WAT);    Crh;    Npy;    Sgk1;    Ucp2;    Adrb1;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.10.007

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Stress is a widely recognized risk factor for psychiatric and metabolic disorders. A number of animal models utilizing various stressors have been developed to facilitate our understanding in the pathophysiology of stress-related dysfunctions. The most commonly used chronic stress paradigms include the unpredictable chronic mild stress paradigm, the social defeat paradigm and the social deprivation paradigm. Here we assess the potential of social crowding as an alternative chronic stress model to study the effects on affective behaviors and metabolic disturbances. Ten-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were housed in groups of four (control) or eight (social crowding; SC) in standard cage for 9 weeks. Exploration, anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors were assessed in the open field test, the elevated T-maze, the novelty-suppressed feeding test and the forced swim test. SC mice exhibited a modest anxiety-like phenotype without change in depressive-like behaviors. Nine weeks of social crowding did not affect the body weight, but robustly increased adiposity as determined by increased mass of fat depots. Consistent with the increased fat content, serum leptin was markedly elevated in the SC mice. Specific changes in gene expression were also observed in the hypothalamus and the white adipose tissue following SC housing. Our study demonstrates the potential of social crowding as an alternative model for the study of stress-related metabolic and behavioral dysfunctions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free