Chronic social defeat stress induces a depression-relevant outcome in male prairie voles

BackgroundStress-induced illnesses, like major depression, are among the leading causes of disability across the world. Consequently, there is a dire need for the validation of translationally-suited animal models incorporating social stress to uncover the etiology of depression. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) are more translationally relevant than many other rodent models as they display monogamous social and parental behaviors and more primate-like neuroanatomy. Therefore, we evaluated whether a novel social defeat stress (SDS) model in male prairie voles induces depression-relevant behavioral outcomes. MethodsAdult sexually-naive male prairie voles experienced SDS bouts from a conspecific pair-bonded male aggressor, 10 min per day for 10 consecutive days. Non-stressed controls (same-sex siblings) were housed in similar conditions but never experienced physical stress. Twenty-four hr later, voles were evaluated in social interaction, sucrose preference, and Morris water maze tests - behavioral endpoints validated to assess social withdrawal, anhedonia-related behavior, and spatial memory performance, respectively. ResultsSDS-exposed voles displayed lower sociability and body weight, decreased preference for a sucrose solution, and impairment of spatial memory retrieval. Importantly, no differences in general locomotor activity were observed as a function of SDS exposure. LimitationsThis study does not include female voles in the experimental design. ConclusionsWe found that repeated SDS exposure, in male prairie voles, results in a depression-relevant phenotype resembling an anhedonia-like outcome (per reductions in sucrose preference) along with social withdrawal and spatial memory impairment - highlighting that the prairie vole is a valuable model with potential to study the neurobiology of social stress-induced depression-related outcomes.