Abstract
Most individuals undergo traumatic stresses at some points in their life, but only a small proportion develop stress-related disorders such as anxiety diseases and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although stress susceptibility is one determinant of mental disorders, the underlying mechanisms and functional implication remain unclear yet. We found that an increased amount of freezing that animals exhibited in the intertrial interval (ITI) of a stress-enhanced fear learning paradigm, predicts ensuing PTSD-like symptoms whereas resilient mice show ITI freezing comparable to that of unstressed mice. To examine the behavioral features, we developed a systematic analytical approach for ITI freezing and stress susceptibility. Thus, we provide a behavioral parameter for prognosis to stress susceptibility of individuals in the development of PTSD-like symptoms as well as a new mathematical means to scrutinize freezing behavior.
Highlights
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder triggered by exposure to traumatic stresses
When electric shocks were first applied during restraint stress as the traumatic event, additional electric shocks during fear conditioning acted as reminders of the traumatic stress
We investigated whether an exposure to a traumatic stress results in specific behavioral alterations during fear conditioning in mice susceptible to PTSD-like phenotypes
Summary
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder triggered by exposure to traumatic stresses. A characteristic symptom of PTSD is persistent reexperiencing or dreaming of traumatic episode(s), and the patients exhibit fear generalization, exemplified by hypervigilance and exaggerated responses toward potential threats and even irrelevant cues [3, 4]. Most people experience traumatic episodes at some points in their life, individual differences in stress susceptibility limit the development of PTSD symptoms to a minor faction (7–30% of the population) [5,6,7]. To obtain etiological and molecular insights into PTSD, several animal models have been developed, which. By employment of a modified SEFL model, we assessed fear generalization and fear recall after memory extinction to determine the stress susceptibility of individual animals through a new analytical algorithm.
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