Adolescent-specific acceleration of social fear extinction through social reward system

초록

Social anxiety disorder(SAD) is a mental disorder induced through traumatic social experiences, characterized by extreme fear and avoidance in social situations. Also, anxiety disorder is the most common family of neuropsychological diseases in both adolescence and adulthood. Despite the clinical significance of social anxiety disorder, the lack of a well-defined animal model has impeded comprehensive research. Therefore, we established a social fear conditioning (SFC) mice model and conducted an extinction (Ext) process similar to exposure therapy. To find out the behavior patterns of mice that vary according to each age, we conducted social fear conditioning, followed by an open field test, elevated plus maze, forced swimming test, Y-maze, novel object recognition, and novel object placement test, three-chamber social interaction test, and preference-avoidance test were conducted. In addition, social conditioned place preference was performed on mice that underwent social fear conditioning and extinction to investigate differences in sociality between each group. We proved that adult SFC mice had increased general anxiety compared to Con mice. Additionally, in SFC/Ext mice, adolescent mice showed a higher extinction ability compared to adult mice, which showed a higher level of sociality than Con mice.