Active behavioral coping alters the behavioral but not the endocrine response to stress
Open accessAbstract
Exposure to traumatic stressors typically causes lasting changes in emotionality and behavior. However, coping strategies have been shown to prevent and alleviate many stress consequences and the biological mechanisms that underlie coping are of great interest. Whereas the laboratory stressor inescapable tail-shock induces anxiety-like behaviors, here we demonstrate that permitting a rat to chew on a wooden dowel during administration of tail-shock prevented the development of anxiety like behaviors in the open field and juvenile social exploration tests. Uncontrollable stressors increase corticosterone and decrease thyroid hormone, and we hypothesized that coping would blunt these changes. While tail-shock did produce these effects, active coping did not alter hormone levels. The dissociation between behavioral resilience and circulating hormones is discussed with regard to the utility of these molecules as biomarkers for psychiatric disease.
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Sorted by citations
Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience.
Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/rev0000033 · Cited by 919 · see citing works
“In the rodent, the corticosterone rise is not greater or more prolonged (Helmreich et al., 2012; Maier et al., 1986), the adrenocorticotrophic hormone rise is not greater or more prolonged (Maier et al., 1986), nor is the increase in corticotropin releasing hormone in the hypothalamus larger…”
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Self-citationCait, J., Winder, C. B., & Mason, G. J. (2024) · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2024.106361 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
- Authors
- Helmreich, D. L., Tylee, D., Christianson, J. P., Kubala, K. H., Govindarajan, S. T., O’Neill, W. E., Becoats, K., Watkins, L., & Maier, S. F.
- Affiliations
- University of Rochester Medicine (US)
- University of Colorado System (US)
- University of Rochester (US)
- Venue
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-12
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1941-1948
- ISSN
- 0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3358794
- OpenAlex
- W2000586008
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 0.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH050479, F32MH082453, MH 082453, MH080789, R37MH050479, R03MH080789, R01MH050479)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- active coping, behavioral resilience, stress, anxiety-like behavior, corticosterone, thyroid hormones, biomarkers, mental illness
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Animals, Corticosterone, Electric Stimulation, Exploratory Behavior, Male, Mastication, Stress, Psychological, Thyroxine, Rats, Sprague-Dawley, Rats
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