The Role of Social Stress in the Development of Mental Disorders

The primary risk factor for the onset of depression is social stress. In a clinical study, experience to daily social stress has been connected to the occurrence of major depressive disorder. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, animal depressive models have been proposed. In this study, we comprehensively summarized the different methodologies used to induce social-related stress in animals, including the most commonly used resident-intruder model, housing condition, social isolation, early life social event as well as social hierarchy model. Meanwhile, we investigated the behavioral readout adopted in this field. Moreover, we systematically summarized the molecular changes that have been associated with behavior observation. We found that most of the studies were performed on male animals. However, in humans, depression happens 2–3 times greater in females than males, thus we discussed the potential model that has been adopted to study social stress in females as well. We hope this study could provide a good summary for the field to have a comprehensive view of the social stress-related depression model as a foundation for the development of corresponding therapeutic approaches.