We investigate the impact of adolescent social adversity on neurodevelopment and behavioral outcomes, specifically focusing on male and female C57BL/6 mice. We model social distress using an adapted version of the chronic social defeated stress paradigm. Our model called accelerated social defeated stress is tailored for its use in adolescent C57BL/6 mice.

The social defeated stress protocol requires aggressive behavior from the resident mouse. Existing studies are often conducted in the middle adolescent period, or lack a specificity in terms of postnatal day of exposure. Some studies extend into early adulthood or employ the strains of mice that are not commonly used.

Implementing the social defeat model in adolescent C57BL/6 mice has been challenging because adult or adolescent mice do not typically attack early adolescent male or female mice and adolescent is a short period of life that encompasses discreet temporal windows of vulnerability. The ACSD model successfully induces social avoidance 24 hours later in both males and females. It is short enough to allow the exposure during discreet periods within adolescence.

It allows the segregation of resilient and susceptible mice and in the first model available to study social defeated stress in adolescent C57BL/6 female mice. Our model was generated to be used in adolescent male and female C57BL/6 mouse. This four day stress paradigm with two physical attack sessions per day uses an adult C57BL/6 male mouse to prime the C1 mouse for aggressiveness, ensuring that the C1 mouse readily attacks the experimental male or female mouse.