Chapter 44 - Stress Coping and Resilience Modeled in Mice

Abstract

This chapter describes mouse models of stress coping and resilience. Instead of screening for resilience or the absence of vulnerability to stress, we focus on learning to cope with stress and the process of building resilience. Mice randomized to learning to cope sessions of training or a control treatment condition were assessed for corticosterone responses and behavioral indications of emotionality. Learning to cope acutely increases corticosterone and decreases subsequent immobility on tail-suspension tests. Learning to cope also subsequently diminishes freezing in the open field, decreases novel object-exploration latencies, and reduces corticosterone responses to restraint. Learning to cope increases stargazin expression in anterior cingulate cortex and stargazin correlates inversely with measures of emotionality. Stargazin modulates glutamate receptor signaling and plays a role in synaptic plasticity. Molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity that mediate learning and memory in the context of coping provide novel targets for new treatments of stress disorders in human health.