Physical interaction is not necessary for the induction of housing-type social buffering of conditioned hyperthermia in male rats

Abstract In social animals, housing with conspecific animals after a stressful event attenuates the subsequent adverse outcomes due to the event, and this has been called housing-type social buffering. We have previously found that housing-type social buffering attenuates the enhancement of hyperthermia and Fos expression in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus that occurs in response to an aversive conditioned stimulus in male rats. Here, we analyzed the role of physical interactions during social housing in the induction of housing-type social buffering. When a fear-conditioned subject was alone after the conditioning and then exposed to the conditioned stimulus, it showed behavioral, autonomic, and neural stress responses. However, social housing, during which physical interactions were prevented by wire mesh, attenuated these autonomic and neural stress responses, as has been seen in previous studies. These results suggested that physical interaction was not necessary for the induction of housing-type social buffering. With this social cohabitation model, we then found that social cohabitation increased Fos expression in the posterior complex of the anterior olfactory nucleus of the fear-conditioned subject. Social cohabitation also increased Fos expression in 11 brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, the nucleus accumbens, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the medial, lateral, basal, and cortical amygdala. These results provide information about the neural mechanisms that induce housing-type social buffering.