【Animal Modeling】-Depression-like behavioral changes in male and female rats induced by restraint stress of different durations

  Objective: To investigate the effects of chronic restraint stress of different restraint durations on the depression-like behavior of male and female SD rats, and to provide a basis for the selection of experimental animals' gender and experimental duration in the chronic restraint stress model.

  Methods: SD rats (half male and half male) were restrained for 10 h and 14 h every day, and continuously restrained for 28 d to establish a chronic restraint stress model. The depressive-like behaviors induced by chronic restraint stress of different restraint durations on male and female SD rats were observed by weight monitoring, sugar water preference test, autonomous activity test, novelty test and other experimental methods.

  Results: The exercise time and central area activity time of male and female rats in 14 h/28 d CRS group decreased, the sugar-water preference index decreased, the latency to explore novelty increased, and the exploration time and frequency decreased. Significant differences. However, compared with the control group, the male and female rats in the 10 h/28 d CRS group only had significant differences in individual indicators. In the comparison of male and female rats, the sugar water preference index of the 14 h/28 d CRS male group decreased significantly, but the corresponding female rats did not significantly decrease. Compared with the control group, the 10 h/28 d CRS male group had less exercise time in the central area, significantly prolonged the latency to explore new things, and shortened the exploration time, while there was no significant difference in the corresponding female rats.

  Conclusion: The 14 h/28 d CRS male and female mice showed significant depression-like behaviors in the sugar water preference test, autonomous activity test, and novelty test. And 10 h/28 d CRS only male group showed a certain tendency of depression-like behavior. Chronic restraint stress is more likely to induce depression-like behavior in male rats.