Stress-induced sleep-like inactivity modulates stress susceptibility in mice

Abstract

Severe environmental and social stress induces dysregulation of sleep along with mood and cognitive disturbances. However, the role and mechanism of this sleep dysregulation remain elusive. Here we evaluated sleep-like inactivity measured by voluntary movements and its relationship to social behaviors in mice without or with social defeat stress as well as the stressed mice with subsequent sleep deprivation. Social defeat stress immediately induced sleep-like inactivity with decreased body temperature. In the social interaction test, the control mice showed high social interest and its correlation with social sniffing intensity, the latter of which indicates positive valence of social sniffing. After the stress, these social characteristics were maintained in stress-resilient mice, but disrupted in stress-susceptible mice, leading to social avoidance. Sleep deprivation after the stress decreased social sniffing intensity along with reduced social interest, but enhanced the exploratory activity with the positive valence of social sniffing. We also found by c-Fos immunohistochemistry that the stress activated sleep-related brain regions, the dorsomedial hypothalamus and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray. Collectively, these findings show that stress activates sleep-related brain regions and induces sleep-like inactivity, contributing to multiple roles of stress-induced sleep for social behaviors.