Non-rapid eye movement sleep determines resilience to social stress

Bush, B. J.; Donnay, C.; Andrews, E.-J. A.; Lewis-Sanders, D.; Gray, C.; Qiao, Z.; Brager, A. J.; Johnson, H.; Brewer, H.; Sood, S.; Saafir, T.; Benveniste, M.; Paul, K. N.; Ehlen, J. C.

doi:10.1101/2022.06.01.494280

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2022.06.01.494280

Non-rapid eye movement sleep determines resilience to social stress

Bush, B. J.·Donnay, C.·Andrews, E.-J. A.·Lewis-Sanders, D.·Gray, C.·Qiao, Z.·Brager, A. J.·Johnson, H.·Brewer, H.·Sood, S.·Saafir, T.·Benveniste, M.·Paul, K. N.·Ehlen, J. C.

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Abstract

Resilience, the ability to overcome stressful conditions, is found in most mammals and varies significantly among individuals. A lack of resilience can lead to the development of neuropsychiatric and sleep disorders, often within the same individual. Despite extensive research into the brain mechanisms causing maladaptive behavioral-responses to stress, it is not clear why some individuals exhibit resilience. To examine if sleep has a determinative role in maladaptive behavioral-response to social stress, we investigated individual variations in resilience using a social-defeat model for male mice. Our results reveal a direct, causal relationship between sleep amount and resilience--demonstrating that sleep increases after social-defeat stress only occur in resilient mice. Further, we found that within the prefrontal cortex, a regulator of maladaptive responses to stress, pre-existing differences in sleep regulation predict resilience. Overall, these results demonstrate that increased NREM sleep, mediated cortically, is an active response to social-defeat stress that is both necessary and sufficient for promoting resilience. They also show that differences in resilience are strongly correlated with inter-individual variability in sleep regulation.

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Bush, B. J., Donnay, C., Andrews, E.-J. A., Lewis-Sanders, D., Gray, C., Qiao, Z., Brager, A. J., Johnson, H., Brewer, H., Sood, S., Saafir, T., Benveniste, M., Paul, K. N., Ehlen, J. C.. 2022-06-01. Non-rapid eye movement sleep determines resilience to social stress. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.01.494280

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