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[Preprint]. 2024 Apr 11:2023.10.03.560702.
doi: 10.1101/2023.10.03.560702.

Adolescent environmental enrichment induces social resilience and alters neural gene expression in a selectively bred rodent model with anxious phenotype

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Adolescent environmental enrichment induces social resilience and alters neural gene expression in a selectively bred rodent model with anxious phenotype

Angela M O'Connor et al. bioRxiv. .

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Abstract

Stress is a major influence on mental health status; the ways that individuals respond to or copes with stressors determine whether they are negatively affected in the future. Stress responses are established by an interplay between genetics, environment, and life experiences. Psychosocial stress is particularly impactful during adolescence, a critical period for the development of mood disorders. In this study we compared two established, selectively-bred Sprague Dawley rat lines, the "internalizing" bred Low Responder (bLR) line versus the "externalizing" bred High Responder (bHR) line, to investigate how genetic temperament and adolescent environment impact future responses to social interactions and psychosocial stress, and how these determinants of stress response interact. Male bLR and bHR rats were exposed to social and environmental enrichment in adolescence prior to experiencing social defeat and were then assessed for social interaction and anxiety-like behavior. Adolescent enrichment caused rats to display more social interaction, as well as nominally less social avoidance, less submission during defeat, and resilience to the effects of social stress on corticosterone, in a manner that seemed more notable in bLRs. For bHRs, enrichment also caused greater aggression during a neutral social encounter and nominally during defeat, and decreased anxiety-like behavior. To explore the neurobiology underlying the development of social resilience in the anxious phenotype bLRs, RNA-seq was conducted on the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens, two brain regions that mediate stress regulation and social behavior. Gene sets previously associated with stress, social behavior, aggression and exploratory activity were enriched with differential expression in both regions, with a particularly large effect on gene sets that regulate social behaviors. Our findings provide further evidence that adolescent enrichment can serve as an inoculating experience against future stressors. The ability to induce social resilience in a usually anxious line of animals by manipulating their environment has translational implications, as it underscores the feasibility of intervention strategies targeted at genetically vulnerable adolescent populations.

Keywords: adolescence; environmental enrichment; genetic environment interactions; social stress.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest None

Figures

Fig 1:
Fig 1:. Behavioral Methodology.
A. Experimental timeline outlining the timing of behavioral interventions and testing. The day of birth is considered postnatal day 0 (P0). B. Examples of the standard (“NIL”), simple enrichment (“SE”) and enhanced enrichment (“EE”) cages. Enrichment cages consisted of a large (50×40×50cm) cage with three separate levels connected by mesh ramps. The EE condition also contained various objects that were added to the cage and moved around over the duration of enrichment period, including running wheels, plastic and cardboard tunnels, plastic igloo houses, Nylabones and dog chew toys. Different starting combinations of objects were used each week. All animals from one litter (n=4–6) were placed into the same enrichment cage.
Fig 2.
Fig 2.. Social Defeat is experienced through the lens of genetic predisposition and potentially previous social and environmental experience.
bLR rats responded submissively to social defeat and this increased with each social defeat session in a manner that was nominally moderated by enrichment during adolescence, whereas bHR rats responded aggressively to social defeat in a manner that nominally increased with each social defeat session in animals with previous social experience during adolescence. Bred line is illustrated with color (bHR=green, bLR=red), and adolescent enrichment by datapoint shape (circle=standard housing (NIL), square=simple enrichment (SE), triangle= enhanced enrichment (EE)). Light red or light green dots=individual data points, thin red or green lines: best fit line for each rat across the four days of defeat, thick line: best fit line for the experimental subgroup across the four days of defeat.
Fig 3.
Fig 3.. Adolescent social and environmental enrichment seemed to decrease social avoidance, leading to increased approach behavior in bLRs and increased aggression in bHRs.
A. An illustration of the social interaction task for the bHR/bLR animals (white rat), with each zone delineated: caged novel target Long Evans rat (black rat), avoidance zone (red), and interaction zone (green). B-D. Boxplots illustrate the median and interquartile range for each treatment group (+/− whiskers illustrating the range and/or 1.5x interquartile range). Bred line is illustrated with box fill color (bHR=green, bLR=red), adolescent enrichment by datapoint shape (circle=standard housing (NIL), square=simple enrichment (SE), triangle= enhanced enrichment (EE)), and social defeat is indicated by datapoint color (open=no defeat (NIL), black filled=defeated (SD)). B. Adolescent enrichment nominally decreased the percent time spent in the socially avoidant zone (as determined by an automated Ethovision analysis). As expected, bLR rats were generally more avoidant than bHR rats. C. Adolescent enrichment nominally increased the percent time spent approaching the stimulus animal, especially for bLR rats, as measured by detailed video analysis by a blinded experimenter. D. Adolescent enrichment increased the percent time on top of the stimulus animal’s cage, especially for more aggressive bHRs, as measured by detailed video analysis by a blinded experimenter.
Fig 4.
Fig 4.. Anxiety and Stress Response: Adolescent enrichment decreased anxiety-like behavior in bHR rats and nominally reduced the elevation of corticosterone following social defeat in vulnerable bLR rats.
A. The elevated plus maze (EPM) revealed expected phenotypical differences in anxiety and exploratory activity due to selective breeding, with bLRs showing less exploratory activity and elevated anxiety-like behavior, as illustrated by decreased percent time spent in the open arms. bHR rats also showed large increases in the percent time exploring the open arms of the EPM following adolescent enrichment, whereas neither bHR nor bLR rats showed a clear change in anxiety-like behavior following social defeat. Boxplots illustrate the median and interquartile range for each treatment group (+/− whiskers illustrating the range and/or 1.5x interquartile range). Bred line is illustrated with box fill color (bHR=green, bLR=red), adolescent enrichment by datapoint shape (circle=standard housing (NIL), square=simple enrichment (SE), triangle=enhanced enrichment (EE)), and social defeat is indicated by datapoint fill (open=no defeat (NIL), black filled=defeated (SD)). B. Plasma corticosterone was nominally elevated at the time of sacrifice several days following social defeat, especially in bLRs kept in standard housing conditions. Note that our hormonal outcome measures were more weakly powered than our behavioral outcomes for logistical reasons: only plasma from a subset of animals was used for this assay (generations F53 and F56: NIL+NIL, NIL+SD, EE+NIL, and EE+SD). The dotted line represents the limit of detection for the assay.
Fig 5.
Fig 5.. Exploratory bLR RNA-Seq: A similar set of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the Nucleus Accumbens (NACC) and Hippocampus (HC) in response to adolescent enhanced enrichment (EE) and social defeat.
A. A Venn Diagram illustrating the overlap of the bLR RNA-Seq results from the two brain regions (NACC, HC) and treatment groups (adolescent enrichment: standard housing (NIL) vs. enhanced enrichment (EE); social defeat: no defeat (NIL) vs. social defeat (SD)). To be included in the Venn Diagram, a gene needed to be differentially expressed in association with either EE or SD in at least one region (FDR<0.05). Then, to be considered overlapping, there needed to be at least nominal (p<0.05) differential expression with the other intervention in the same brain region, or in association with either intervention in the other brain region. Surprisingly, the overlapping effects of EE and SD were ween in the same direction in both brain regions: Red=upregulation, Blue=down-regulation, Purple=differential expression in opposing directions under different conditions/regions. For the full table of top DEGs (FDR<0.05) see Figs S12–14. For the full results for all genes see Tables S2–S3. B. Example boxplots illustrating the relationship between gene expression (log2 CPM) and treatment group. Adolescent enrichment is illustrated by datapoint shape (circle=standard housing (NIL), triangle=enhanced enrichment (EE)) and social defeat is indicated by datapoint fill (open=no defeat (NIL), black filled=defeated (SD)). Please note that these results should be considered exploratory, as low statistical power can disproportionately increase false positive risk when using discovery-based approaches.
Fig 6.
Fig 6.. Exploratory: For each of our interventions, differential expression was enriched within gene sets related to stress, social behavior, aggression, activity level, and potentially environmental enrichment.
Using gene set enrichment analysis (fGSEA) and a custom gene set file (Brain.gmt), we found that there was enriched differential expression within a disproportionate percent of the gene sets in categories paralleling our behavioral results. Shown above are the percent of gene sets (y-axis) from each category (x-axis) that were found to be significantly enriched with differential expression (FDR<0.05 using fGSEA output from the main effects model (M1) or interactive effects Model (M2)) for each intervention (enhanced enrichment (EE), social defeat (SD)) in each brain region (nucleus accumbens (NACC), hippocampus (HC)) (subpanels). Categories for which a disproportionately large percent of gene sets were enriched with differential expression were identified using fisher’s exact test: *adj.p<0.05, #p<0.05. The directionality for individual enriched gene sets can be seen in Figs S14–S19. For the full results for all gene sets, see Tables S4–S5.

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