title: Attenuation of social interaction-associated ultrasonic vocalizations and spatial working memory performance in rats exposed to chronic unpredictable stress.
abstract: Exposure to unpredictable chronic mild stress (CUS) is a commonly used protocol in rats that is reported to evoke antidepressant-reversible behaviors such as loss of preference for a sweetened water solution which is taken as an analog of the anhedonia seen in major depression. However, the induction of anhedonic-like behavior by chronic mild stress, gauged by an animal's preference for sucrose solution, is not fully reproducible and consistent across laboratories. In this study, we compared a widely used behavioral marker of anhedonia - the sucrose preference test, with another phenotypic marker of emotional valence, social interaction-associated ultrasonic vocalizations as well as a marker of an anxiety-like phenotype, novelty-suppressed feeding, and cognitive performance in the eight arm radial maze task in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. Chronic four-week exposure to unpredictable mild stressors resulted in 1) attenuation of social interaction-associated ultrasonic vocalizations 2) attenuation of spatial memory performance on the radial arm maze 3) attenuation of body weight gain and 4) increased latency to feed in a novelty-suppressed feeding task. However, chronic exposure to CUS did not result in any significant change in sucrose preference at one-week and three-week intervals. Our results argue for the utility of ultrasonic vocalizations in a social interaction context as a comparable alternative or adjunct to the sucrose preference test in determining the efficacy of CUS to generate an anhedonic-like phenotypic state.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Muhammad S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Riaz
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Martin O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Bohlen
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Barak W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Gunter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Quentin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Craig A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Stockmeier
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Ian A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Paul
mesh_terms: D059445:Anhedonia; D000818:Animals; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003071:Cognition; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology; D019422:Dietary Sucrose; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005518:Food Preferences; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D065852:Spatial Memory; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology; D014465:Ultrasonics; D035501:Uncertainty; D014828:Vocalization, Animal; D015430:Weight Gain
chemical_list: D019422:Dietary Sucrose
keywords: Anhedonia; Cognitive decline; Major depression; Spatial navigation; Sprague dawley rats; Stress; USVs; Ultrasonic vocalizations; Unpredictable chronic mild stress (CUS); Working memory