The role of social isolation stress in escalated aggression in rodent models
Open accessAbstract
Anti-social behavior and violence are major public health concerns. Globally, violence contributes to more than 1.6 million deaths each year. Previous studies have reported that social rejection or neglect exacerbates aggression. In rodent models, social isolation stress is used to demonstrate the adverse effects of social deprivation on physiological, endocrinological, immunological, and behavioral parameters, including aggressive behavior. This review summarizes recent rodent studies on the effect of social isolation stress during different developmental periods on aggressive behavior and the underlying neural mechanisms. Social isolation during adulthood affects the levels of neurosteroids and neuropeptides and increases aggressive behavior. These changes are ethologically relevant for the adaptation to changes in local environmental conditions in the natural habitats. Chronic deprivation of social interaction after weaning, especially during the juvenile to adolescent periods, leads to the disruption of the development of appropriate social behavior and the maladaptive escalation of aggressive behavior. The understanding of neurobiological mechanisms underlying social isolation-induced escalated aggression will aid in the development of therapeutic interventions for escalated aggression.
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Animal models of early life stress are already shown to be applicable to aggression and alcohol use.
“Animal models of early life stress are already shown to be applicable to aggression (reviewed in Parise et al. 2025; Takahashi 2025) and alcohol use (reviewed in McDonnell-Dowling and Miczek 2018).”
From Decoding the bidirectional links between alcohol misuse and aggression: toward a unified translational framework (2026) · cites this paper as Takahashi 2025
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- Authors
- Takahashi, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Tsukuba (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Takahashi, Aki
- ORCID
- Takahashi, Aki
- Venue
- Neuroscience Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2025-02
- Volume
- 211
- Pages
- 75-84
- ISSN
- 0168-0102 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4288808871
- Cited by
- 37
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8
- FWCI
- 1.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuroscience Research (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (22K19744, 23K23923)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- social isolation stress, antisocial behavior, violence, rodent models, social deprivation, neurosteroids, neuropeptides, social behavior development
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Animals, Behavior, Animal, Rodentia, Social Behavior, Social Isolation, Stress, Psychological
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