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Bludau, Anna ; Kabas, Melanie ; Menon, Rohit ; Neumann, Inga D.

Acute and persistent neuroendocrine and behavioral alterations after social fear conditioning in adolescent male mice

Bludau, Anna , Kabas, Melanie, Menon, Rohit and Neumann, Inga D. (2026) Acute and persistent neuroendocrine and behavioral alterations after social fear conditioning in adolescent male mice. Journal of Neuroendocrinology 38 (3), e70153.

Date of publication of this fulltext: 19 Mar 2026 09:20
Article
DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.78989


Abstract

Adolescence is a critical developmental period with heightened stress susceptibility. Traumatic experiences during this phase are highly predictive of future affective disorders, such as social anxiety disorder (SAD), which may manifest during early adolescence. Social avoidance, a major symptom of SAD, can be robustly generated in adult male and female mice using the social fear conditioning ...

Adolescence is a critical developmental period with heightened stress susceptibility. Traumatic experiences during this phase are highly predictive of future affective disorders, such as social anxiety disorder (SAD), which may manifest during early adolescence. Social avoidance, a major symptom of SAD, can be robustly generated in adult male and female mice using the social fear conditioning (SFC) paradigm. Using the SFC paradigm in adolescent mice, we analyze behavioral and neuroendocrine responses after adolescent social trauma. Here, we demonstrate that social fear elicited by SFC in early adolescent (EA) male mice (SFC+EA/29d) persists until adulthood (SFC+EA/57d). We further compared neuroendocrine responses to a heterotypic (elevated platform) or homotypic (exposure to a conspecific) stressor after SFC performed either in EA (SFC+EA/29d, SFC+EA/57d) or adulthood (SFC+AD). While in non-conditioned SFC−EA/29d mice plasma corticosterone concentrations remained unchanged after social exposure in adolescence, SFC+EA/29d resulted in a hyper-response of the HPA axis to the social, but not heterotypic stressor, with a negative correlation of plasma corticosterone concentrations and social investigation times. This effect of SFC+EA/29d on plasma corticosterone response was absent in SFC+EA/57d and SFC+AD mice indicating a higher sensitivity to social trauma in EA. We further revealed a rise in plasma oxytocin (OXT) levels in adult SFC− mice in response to the social challenge, whereas the OXT system of SFC−EA/29d mice still seems to be unresponsive to the social stimulus. Importantly, after SFC+ either in EA or AD, the OXT response to social exposure found in SFC−AD controls was completely abolished, whereas in SFC−EA/57d mice OXT levels positively correlated with social investigation times, indicating social trauma-induced acute and long-lasting dysfunctions of the OXT system. In summary, we show that exposure to social trauma (SFC+) in early adolescence exerts both short-term as well as long-term effects on social behavior. We further reveal that SFC+EA/29d prevents the corticosterone hypo-response to social stimuli characteristic for early adolescence. Moreover, SFC+/AD and SFC+EA/57d impair the plasma OXT response to a social, but not heterotypic, stressor.



Involved Institutions


Details

Item typeArticle
Journal or Publication TitleJournal of Neuroendocrinology
Publisher:Wiley
Volume:38
Number of Issue or Book Chapter:3
Page Range:e70153
Date16 March 2026
InstitutionsBiology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie > Tierphysiologie/Neurobiologie (Prof. Dr. Inga Neumann)
Projects
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (274021948)
Identification Number
ValueType
10.1111/jne.70153DOI
Keywordscorticosterone, oxytocin, social anxiety disorder, social avoidance
Dewey Decimal Classification500 Science > 500 Natural sciences & mathematics
500 Science > 570 Life sciences
500 Science > 590 Zoological sciences
StatusPublished
RefereedYes, this version has been refereed
Created at the University of RegensburgYes
URN of the UB Regensburgurn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-789893
Item ID78989

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