The DOI matches its Crossref record; 91 of the 91 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Females do not Express Learned Helplessness like Males do
Abstract
Women are more likely than men to suffer from stress-related mental disorders, such as depression. In the present experiments, we identified sex differences in one of the most common animal models of depression, that of learned helplessness. Male and female rats were trained to escape a mild footshock each day for 7 days (controllable stress). Each rat was yoked to another rat that could not escape (uncontrollable stress), but was exposed to the same amount of shock. One day later, all stressed rats and unstressed controls were tested on a more difficult escape task in a different context. Most males exposed to uncontrollable stress did not learn to escape and were therefore helpless. In contrast, most females did learn to escape on the more difficult escape task, irrespective of whether they had been exposed to controllable or uncontrollable stress. The sex differences in helplessness behavior were not dependent on the presence of sex hormones in adulthood, because neither ovariectomy of females nor castration of males abolished them. The absence of helplessness in females was neither dependent on organizational effects of testosterone during the day of birth, because masculinized females did not express helplessness as adults. Thus, sex differences in helplessness behavior are independent of gonadal hormones in adulthood and testosterone exposure during perinatal development. Learned helplessness may not constitute a valid model for depressive behavior in women, at least as reflected by the response of female rats to operant conditioning procedures after stressful experience.
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Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey
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Failure to escape traumatic shock.
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“In most reports, animals that are exposed to uncontrollable stressful events do not learn to escape during testing on the new task (Overmier and Seligman, 1967; Seligman and Maier, 1967).”
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Sexual Differentiation of the Central Nervous System
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Pathogenesis of depression: Insights from human and rodent studies
Ménard, C., Hodes, G. E., & Russo, S. J. (2016) · Neuroscience · doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2015.05.053 · Cited by 593
Sex differences in anxiety and depression: circuits and mechanisms
Bangasser, D. A., & Cuarenta, A. (2021) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41583-021-00513-0 · Cited by 479
Hodes, G. E., Pfau, M. L., Purushothaman, I., Ahn, H. F., Golden, S. A., Christoffel, D. J., Magida, J., Brancato, A., Takahashi, A., Flanigan, M. E., et al. (2015) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1392-15.2015 · Cited by 395
Sex differences in anxiety and emotional behavior
Donner, N. C., & Lowry, C. A. (2013) · Pflügers Archiv - European Journal of Physiology · doi:10.1007/s00424-013-1271-7 · Cited by 379
Sex differences in learning processes of classical and operant conditioning
Dalla, C., & Shors, T. J. (2009) · Physiology & Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2009.02.035 · Cited by 347
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Dalla, C., Edgecomb, C., Whetstone, A. S., & Shors, T. J.
- Affiliations
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Corresponding author
- Shors, Tracey J
- Venue
- Neuropsychopharmacology
- Published
- 2007-08-22
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1559-1569
- ISSN
- 0893-133X (ISSN-L)
- 1740-634X
- OpenAlex
- W2030804316
- Cited by
- 174
- References
- 91
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 3.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Neuropsychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0444364)
- National Institutes of Health (59970)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH-59970, R01MH059970, 59970)
- Division of Integrative Organismal Systems
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- learned helplessness, sex differences, depression, uncontrollable stress, escape learning, ovariectomy, castration, testosterone, gonadal hormones, female rats, animal models of depression
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Androgens, Animals, Avoidance Learning, Behavior, Animal, Castration, Conditioning, Operant, Disease Models, Animal, Electroshock, Escape Reaction, Female, Helplessness, Learned, Male, Reaction Time, Reinforcement Schedule, Sex Characteristics, Stress, Psychological, Testosterone, Rats, Sprague-Dawley, Rats
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