Concurrent environmental enrichment and chronic restraint stress: Effects on innate anxiety and depressive-like behavior in male adolescent mice.

Abstract

Adolescence is a period that exhibits both vulnerability and adaptation to environmental stimulus. This study explored the co-existence effect of environmental enrichment (EE) and restraint stress (RS) on innate anxiety and depressive-like behavior in adolescent mice. Male ICR mice were treated with daily EE and RS (4h/d or 8h/d) for 2 or 4weeks from early adolescence (postnatal day 30) and emotional behaviors were evaluated 24h after the end of treatment. 4 weeks of 8h RS treatment decreased immobility time in forced swimming test, demonstrating an antidepressant-like effect. For 2weeks of treatment, 8h RS significantly reduced the time spent in the lighted compartment of the light-dark box, indicating an increased anxiety level. These results show that under the present experimental design, RS treatment with different duration could have different effect on mice emotion-related behavior, but there was no interaction between EE and RS.