Hyperactivity and Abnormal Exploratory Activity Developing in CD-1 Male Mice under Chronic Experience of Aggression and Social Defeats

Abstract

Chronic social defeat stress induces diverse effects in mice of different strains and even in animals of the same strain. This paper aims to study the effect of repeated social defeats and, for contrast, repeated aggression in daily agonistic interactions on the behaviors of CD-1 male mice. The behavior of animals that have the same winning and losing track record during 3, 10, 21 days is studied in different tests. The level of aggressiveness, as estimated by the number and total time of attacks, decreases; nevertheless, direct and indirect forms of aggression demonstrated by the aggressive mice (winners) remain significantly high. The number of stereotypic behaviors (rotations and jumps) and total time of digging behaviors are significantly increased in the winners after 21 days compared to 3 and 10 days of intermale confrontations. Among the losers, chronic experience of social defeats is accompanied by the development of pronounced anxiety and a depression-like state estimated by the elevated plus-maze and the Porsolt test scores, respectively. Both groups of male mice with alternative social behaviors demonstrate abnormal locomotor and exploratory behaviors in the open-field test. This phenomenon may be viewed as hyperactivity developed under chronic agonistic interactions and specific for the outbred CD-1 mice. We believe that these animals may be potentially used for modeling the key symptoms of bipolar disorder.