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Comparing effects of empathic stress in social equal and inequal conditions on anxiety-like behaviors in male rats
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Mohammad Mazaheri   , Maryam Radahmadi , Mohammadreza Sharifi |
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Abstract: (295 Views) |
Introduction: Empathic stress (witnessing conspecific suffering) can usually induce distress for an observer. Also, the presence of the observer probably reduces the stress of the subject who is suffering (demonstrator) through consolation behaviors. Additionally, having socially equal and unequal conditions for anyone can change stress responsiveness and probably cause anxiety. The present study compared the effects of empathic stress in socially equal and unequal conditions on anxiety-like behaviors in rats.
Methods and Materials: Forty-two male Wistar rats were divided into six groups: Control, restraint stress (Sham1), isolation stress (Sham2), dyadic equal empathic stress (both rats received restraint stress), dyadic inequal empathic stress (a rat was free-move and other one received restraint stress) groups. In the dyadic equal empathic stress group, a pair of rats were into separate restrainers in a common cage. Whereas, in the dyadic inequal empathic stress group, a rat was free-move (as an observer), and another one received restraint stress (as a demonstrator) in a common cage. Stress was induced 2h/day for 21 days. The number of open arm entries (OAE%) and total spent time in the open arms (OAT%) were evaluated in the elevated plus maze test for anxiety-like behavior assessment.
Results: The %OAT and %OAE significantly decreased in all stressed groups, especially in restraint stress and dyadic equal empathic stress. There were not any significant differences among all stressed groups.
Conclusion: Observing chronic psychological stress in other subjects can promote stress to anxiety in both social equal and unequal empathic stress. Therefore, empathy can play a determining role in inducing anxiety in individuals. It seems that even socially equal conditions couldn’t prevent inducing anxiety in other subjects. Unexpectedly, observers couldn’t reduce the anxiety-like behaviors in the demonstrators in the social inequal conditions, probably due to the inequity conditions that they were in it.
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| Keywords: Anxiety-like behavior, Elevated plus maze, Empathic stress |
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Full-Text [PDF 316 kb]
(52 Downloads)
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
General
Received: 2023/12/23 | Accepted: 2023/08/23 | Published: 2023/08/23
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