TY  - JOUR
A1  - Meyer, Neele
A1  - Richter, S. Helene
A1  - Schreiber, Rebecca S.
A1  - Kloke, Vanessa
A1  - Kaiser, Sylvia
A1  - Lesch, Klaus-Peter
A1  - Sachser, Norbert
T1  - The Unexpected Effects of Beneficial and Adverse Social Experiences during Adolescence on Anxiety and Aggression and Their Modulation by Genotype
JF  - Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
N2  - Anxiety and aggression are part of the behavioral repertoire of humans and animals. However, in their exaggerated form both can become maladaptive and result in psychiatric disorders. On the one hand, genetic predisposition has been shown to play a crucial modulatory role in anxiety and aggression. On the other hand, social experiences have been implicated in the modulation of these traits. However, so far, mainly experiences in early life phases have been considered crucial for shaping anxiety-like and aggressive behavior, while the phase of adolescence has largely been neglected. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to elucidate how levels of anxiety-like and aggressive behavior are shaped by social experiences during adolescence and serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype. For this purpose, male mice of a 5-HTT knockout mouse model including all three genotypes (wildtype, heterozygous and homozygous 5-HTT knockout mice) were either exposed to an adverse social situation or a beneficial social environment during adolescence. This was accomplished in a custom-made cage system where mice experiencing the adverse environment were repeatedly introduced to the territory of a dominant opponent but had the possibility to escape to a refuge cage. Mice encountering beneficial social conditions had free access to a female mating partner. Afterwards, anxiety-like and aggressive behavior was assessed in a battery of tests. Surprisingly, unfavorable conditions during adolescence led to a decrease in anxiety-like behavior and an increase in exploratory locomotion. Additionally, aggressive behavior was augmented in animals that experienced social adversity. Concerning genotype, homozygous 5-HTT knockout mice were more anxious and less aggressive than heterozygous 5-HTT knockout and wildtype mice. In summary, adolescence is clearly an important phase in which anxiety-like and aggressive behavior can be shaped. Furthermore, it seems that having to cope with challenge during adolescence instead of experiencing throughout beneficial social conditions leads to reduced levels of anxiety-like behavior.
KW  - adolescence
KW  - aggressiveness
KW  - serotonin transporter
KW  - coping with challenge
KW  - adversity
KW  - anxiety-like behavior
KW  - social experience
KW  - 5-HTT knockout mice
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165090
VL  - 10
IS  - 97
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kuhn, Manuel
A1  - Scharfenort, Robert
A1  - Schümann, Dirk
A1  - Schiele, Miriam A.
A1  - Münsterkötter, Anna L.
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Domschke, Katharina
A1  - Haaker, Jan
A1  - Kalisch, Raffael
A1  - Pauli, Paul
A1  - Reif, Andreas
A1  - Romanos, Marcel
A1  - Zwanzger, Peter
A1  - Lonsdorf, Tina B.
T1  - Mismatch or allostatic load? Timing of life adversity differentially shapes gray matter volume and anxious temperament
JF  - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
N2  - Traditionally, adversity was defined as the accumulation of environmental events (allostatic load). Recently however, a mismatch between the early and the later (adult) environment (mismatch) has been hypothesized to be critical for disease development, a hypothesis that has not yet been tested explicitly in humans. We explored the impact of timing of life adversity (childhood and past year) on anxiety and depression levels (N = 833) and brain morphology (N = 129). Both remote (childhood) and proximal (recent) adversities were differentially mirrored in morphometric changes in areas critically involved in emotional processing (i.e. amygdala/hippocampus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, respectively). The effect of adversity on affect acted in an additive way with no evidence for interactions (mismatch). Structural equation modeling demonstrated a direct effect of adversity on morphometric estimates and anxiety/depression without evidence of brain morphology functioning as a mediator. Our results highlight that adversity manifests as pronounced changes in brain morphometric and affective temperament even though these seem to represent distinct mechanistic pathways. A major goal of future studies should be to define critical time periods for the impact of adversity and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse childhood life experiences.
KW  - VBM
KW  - childhood maltreatment
KW  - adversity
KW  - stressful life events
KW  - mismatch
KW  - allostatic load
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189645
VL  - 11
IS  - 4
ER  -