The response to psychosocial stress in the form of social isolation and social instability especially in females might manifest differently based on social rank, suggests researchers at Tulane University in a new study published in the journal Current Biology.
Researchers conducted their study on adult female mice by putting them in pairs and allowing them to form stable social relationships over several days. In each pair, one of the mice had high, or dominant social status, while the other was considered the subordinate with relatively low social status.
Study Examines How Social Rank Affects Response to Stress
After establishing a baseline, they monitored changes in behavior, stress hormones, and neuronal activation in response to chronic social stress. Later, they analyzed how these different forms of Stress impact behavior and the stress hormone corticosterone (an analog of the human hormone, cortisol) based on their social rank.
They also looked throughout the brain to identify brain areas that are activated in response to psychosocial stress. They discovered that mice with lower social status were more susceptible to social instability, which is akin to ever-changing or inconsistent social groups. Those with higher ranks were more susceptible to social isolation, or loneliness.
There were also differences in the parts of the brain that became activated by social encounters, based upon the social status of the animal responding to it and whether they had experienced psychosocial stress.
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Some areas of a dominant animal’s brain would react differently to social isolation than to social uncertainty. And this was also true for subordinates. Rank gave the animals a unique neurobiological ‘fingerprint’ for how they responded to chronic stress.
Overall, these findings may have implications for understanding the impact that social status and social networks have on the prevalence of stress-related mental illnesses such as generalized anxiety disorder and major depression. However, future studies that use more complex social situations are needed before these results can translate to humans.
Source: Eurekalert
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