Social conflict models: Can they inform us about human psychopathology?
Abstract
Social conflict models have been proposed as a powerful way to investigate basic questions of how brain and behavior are altered by social experience. Social defeat, in particular, appears to be a major stressor for most species, and in humans, this stressor is thought to play an important role in the onset of a variety of psychiatric disorders including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Aggressive experience, on the other hand, may promote disorders involving inappropriate aggression and violence. Current research using animal models of social conflict involves multiple levels of analysis from genetic and molecular to systems and overt behavior. This review briefly examines a variety of these animal models of social conflict in order to assess whether they are useful for advancing our understanding of how experience can shape brain and behavior and for translating this information so that we have the potential to improve the quality of life of individuals with mental illness and behavioral disorders.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
There is a rich psychology literature exploring the roles of stressors in developing depressive disorders that are accurately mimicked by repeated social subordinations.
“There is a rich psychology literature exploring the roles of stressors in developing depressive disorders that are accurately mimicked by repeated social subordinations38.”
From A standardized protocol for repeated social defeat stress in mice (2011) · cites this paper as [38]
Cites
Causal Relationship Between Stressful Life Events and the Onset of Major Depression
Kendler, K. S., Karkowski, L. M., & Prescott, C. A. (1999) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/ajp.156.6.837 · Cited by 2,486 · see citing works
THE EFFECTS OF STRESSFUL LIFE EVENTS ON DEPRESSION
Kessler, R. C. (1997) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.48.1.191 · Cited by 2,111 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Stressful events are known to exacerbate or lead to the onset of bouts of depression (Post, 1992; Holsboer and Barden, 1996; Kessler, 1997; Kendler et al., 1999; Gold and Chrousos, 2002), and early exposure to social loss appears to be a major contributor to future depression (Heim and Nemeroff,…”
BackgroundGILBERT, P., & ALLAN, S. (1998) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291798006710 · Cited by 972 · see citing works
Animal models of social stress: Effects on behavior and brain neurochemical systems
Blanchard, R. J., McKittrick, C. R., & Blanchard, D. C. (2001) · Physiology & Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0031-9384(01)00449-8 · Cited by 595 · see citing works
Relationship of anhedonia and anxiety to social rank, defeat and entrapment
Gilbert, P., Allan, S., Brough, S., Melley, S., & Miles, J. N. V. (2002) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/s0165-0327(01)00392-5 · Cited by 200 · cited 2× · see citing works
“One interesting perspective is that the brain and depressive behavior have evolved so that individuals have a mechanism whereby they can accept social defeat and low social rank (Gilbert and Allan, 1998; Rohde, 2001; Gilbert et al., 2002).”
BackgroundWhat can animal aggression research tell us about human aggression?
Blanchard, D. C., & Blanchard, R. J. (2003) · Hormones and Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0018-506x(03)00133-8 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Environmental stress and psychiatric illness
Agid, O., Kohn, Y., & Lerer, B. (2000) · Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy · doi:10.1016/s0753-3322(00)89046-0 · Cited by 169 · see citing works
Association analysis of monoamine oxidase A and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Lawson, D. C., Turic, D., Langley, K., Pay, H. M., Govan, C. F., Norton, N., Hamshere, M. L., Owen, M. J., O'Donovan, M. C., & Thapar, A. (2003) · American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics · doi:10.1002/ajmg.b.10002 · Cited by 108 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
A standardized protocol for repeated social defeat stress in mice
Golden, S. A., Covington, H. E., Berton, O., & Russo, S. J. (2011) · Nature Protocols · doi:10.1038/nprot.2011.361 · Cited by 1,581 · see citing works
Tynan, R. J., Naicker, S., Hinwood, M., Nalivaiko, E., Buller, K. M., Pow, D. V., Day, T. A., & Walker, F. R. (2010) · Brain, Behavior, and Immunity · doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2010.02.001 · Cited by 531 · see citing works
What's wrong with my mouse model?
Kalueff, A. V., Wheaton, M., & Murphy, D. L. (2007) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2007.01.023 · Cited by 285 · see citing works
Lehmann, M. L., & Herkenham, M. (2011) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0577-11.2011 · Cited by 234 · see citing works
Wook Koo, J., Labonté, B., Engmann, O., Calipari, E. S., Juarez, B., Lorsch, Z., Walsh, J. J., Friedman, A. K., Yorgason, J. T., Han, M.-H., et al. (2016) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.12.009 · Cited by 231 · see citing works
Chronic stress triggers social aversion via glucocorticoid receptor in dopaminoceptive neurons
Barik, J., Marti, F., Morel, C., Fernandez, S. P., Lanteri, C., Godeheu, G., Tassin, J.-P., Mombereau, C., Faure, P., & Tronche, F. (2013) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1226767 · Cited by 214 · see citing works
Donahue, R. J., Muschamp, J. W., Russo, S. J., Nestler, E. J., & Carlezon, W. A. (2014) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.12.014 · Cited by 161 · see citing works
Trainor, B. C., Pride, M. C., Villalon Landeros, R., Knoblauch, N. W., Takahashi, E. Y., Silva, A. L., & Crean, K. K. (2011) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017405 · Cited by 157 · see citing works
Song, Z., Borland, J. M., Larkin, T. E., O’Malley, M., & Albers, H. E. (2016) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.09.001 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
Glucocorticoid receptor-dependent astrocytes mediate stress vulnerability
Lu, C.-L., Ren, J., Mo, J.-W., Fan, J., Guo, F., Chen, L.-Y., Wen, Y.-L., Li, S.-J., Fang, Y.-Y., Wu, Z.-F., et al. (2022) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.11.022 · Cited by 97 · see citing works
Trainor, B. C., Takahashi, E. Y., Campi, K. L., Florez, S. A., Greenberg, G. D., Laman-Maharg, A., Laredo, S. A., Orr, V. N., Silva, A. L., & Steinman, M. Q. (2013) · Hormones and Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.01.011 · Cited by 86 · see citing works
Sex differences in the regulation of offensive aggression and dominance by arginine-vasopressin
Terranova, J. I., Ferris, C. F., & Albers, H. E. (2017) · Frontiers in Endocrinology · doi:10.3389/fendo.2017.00308 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Richey, J. A., Brewer, J. A., Sullivan-Toole, H., Strege, M. V., Kim-Spoon, J., White, S. W., & Ollendick, T. H. (2019) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2019.101756 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Fekete, É. M., Zhao, Y., Li, C., Sabino, V., Vale, W. W., & Zorrilla, E. P. (2009) · Neuroscience · doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2009.03.078 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Unno, K., Fujitani, K., Takamori, N., Takabayashi, F., Maeda, K.-I., Miyazaki, H., Tanida, N., Iguchi, K., Shimoi, K., & Hoshino, M. (2011) · Free Radical Research · doi:10.3109/10715762.2011.566869 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
Morrison, K. E., Bader, L. R., Clinard, C. T., Gerhard, D. M., Gross, S. E., & Cooper, M. A. (2014) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2014.05.041 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
- Authors
- Huhman, K. L.
- Affiliations
- Georgia State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Huhman, Kim L.
- ORCID
- Huhman, Kim L.
- Venue
- Hormones and Behavior
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-11
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 640-646
- ISSN
- 0018-506X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2095286567
- Cited by
- 243
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 0.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Hormones and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH062044)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- social defeat, social stress, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, aggression, violence, psychopathology, translational research
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Animals, Mental Disorders, Conflict, Psychological, Dominance-Subordination, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Social Behavior, Stress, Physiological, Models, Animal
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
