title: Social defeat protocol and relevant biomarkers, implications for stress response physiology, drug abuse, mood disorders and individual stress vulnerability: a systematic review of the last decade.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Social defeat (SD) in rats, which results from male intraspecific confrontations, is ethologically relevant and useful to understand stress effects on physiology and behavior.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic review of studies about biomarkers induced by the SD protocol and published from 2002 to 2013 was carried out in the electronic databases PubMed, Web of Knowledge and ScienceDirect. The search terms were: social defeat, rat, neurotrophins, neuroinflammatory markers, and transcriptional factors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Classical and recently discovered biomarkers were found to be relevant in stress-induced states. Findings were summarized in accordance to the length of exposure to stress: single, repeated, intermittent and continuous SD. This review found that the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a distinct marker of stress adaptation. Along with glucocorticoids and catecholamines, BDNF seems to be important in understanding stress physiology.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The SD model provides a relevant tool to study stress response features, development of addictive behaviors, clinic depression and anxiety, as well as individual differences in vulnerability and resilience to stress.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Mailton
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vasconcelos
authors.affiliation: Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Dirson João
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rosa Maria M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: de Almeida
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004291:Dominance-Subordination; D007206:Individuality; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000378:metabolism*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000378:metabolism; D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers