Individual history of winning and hierarchy landscape influence stress susceptibility in mice

Abstract

Social hierarchy formation is strongly evolutionarily conserved. Across species, rank within social hierarchy has large effects on health and behavior. To investigate the relationship between social rank and stress susceptibility, we exposed ranked male and female mice to social and non-social stressors and manipulated social hierarchy position. We found that rank predicts same sex social stress outcomes: dominance in males and females confers resilience while subordination confers susceptibility. Pre-existing rank does not predict non-social stress outcomes in females and weakly does so in males, but rank emerging under stress conditions reveals social interaction deficits in male and female subordinates. Both history of winning and rank of cage mates affect stress susceptibility in males: rising to the top rank through high mobility confers resilience and mice that lose dominance lose stress resilience, although gaining dominance over a subordinate animal does not confer resilience. Overall, we have demonstrated a relationship between social status and stress susceptibility, particularly when taking into account individual history of winning and the overall hierarchy landscape in male and female mice.