title: Young-Adult Male Rats' Vulnerability to Chronic Mild Stress Is Reflected by Anxious-Like instead of Depressive-Like Behaviors.
abstract: In a previous study, we found that chronic mild stress (CMS) paradigm did not induce anhedonia in young-adult male rats but it reduced their body weight gain. These contrasting results encouraged us to explore other indicators of animal's vulnerability to stress such as anxious-like behaviors, since stress is an etiologic factor also for anxiety. Thus, in this study, we evaluated the vulnerability of these animals to CMS using behavioral tests of depression or anxiety and measuring serum corticosterone. Male Wistar rats were exposed to four weeks of CMS; the animals' body weight and sucrose preference (indicator of anhedonia) were assessed after three weeks, and, after the fourth week, some animals were evaluated in a behavioral battery (elevated plus maze, defensive burying behavior, and forced swimming tests); meanwhile, others were used to measure serum corticosterone. We found that CMS (1) did not affect sucrose preference, immobility behavior in the forced swimming test, or serum corticosterone; (2) decreased body weight gain; and (3) increased the rat's entries into closed arms of the plus maze and the cumulative burying behavior. These data indicate that young male rats' vulnerability to CMS is reflected as poor body weight gain and anxious-like instead of depressive-like behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Farmacología Conductual, Dirección de Investigaciones en Neurociencias, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Calzada México-Xochimilco 101, Colonia San Lorenzo Huipulco, Delegación Tlalpan, 14370 Ciudad de México, DF, Mexico.
authors.forename: Herrera-Pérez
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: José Jaime
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Farmacología Conductual, Dirección de Investigaciones en Neurociencias, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Calzada México-Xochimilco 101, Colonia San Lorenzo Huipulco, Delegación Tlalpan, 14370 Ciudad de México, DF, Mexico.
authors.forename: Benítez-Coronel
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Venus
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Farmacología Conductual, Dirección de Investigaciones en Neurociencias, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Calzada México-Xochimilco 101, Colonia San Lorenzo Huipulco, Delegación Tlalpan, 14370 Ciudad de México, DF, Mexico.
authors.forename: Jiménez-Rubio
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Graciela
authors.affiliation: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Calzada México-Xochimilco 101, Colonia San Lorenzo Huipulco, Delegación Tlalpan, 14370 Ciudad de México, DF, Mexico.
authors.forename: Hernández-Hernández Olivia
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Tania
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Farmacología Conductual, Dirección de Investigaciones en Neurociencias, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Calzada México-Xochimilco 101, Colonia San Lorenzo Huipulco, Delegación Tlalpan, 14370 Ciudad de México, DF, Mexico.
authors.forename: Martínez-Mota
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0014-7884
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lucía