Gonadal steroid hormone receptors in the medial amygdala contribute to experience-dependent changes in stress vulnerability.

ABSTRACT: Social experience can generate neural plasticity that changes how individuals respond to stress. Winning aggressive encounters alters how animals respond to future challenges and leads to increased plasma testosterone concentrations and androgen receptor (AR) expression in the social behavior neural network. In this project, our aim was to identify neuroendocrine mechanisms that account for changes in stress-related behavior following the establishment of dominance relationships over a two-week period. We used a Syrian hamster model in which acute social defeat stress increases anxiety-like responses in a conditioned defeat test in males and in a social avoidance test in females. First, we administered flutamide, an AR antagonist, via intraperitoneal injections daily during the establishme

SUBMITTER: Cooper MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8217359 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature