Lamya'a Dawud
Doctoral Candidate, Integrative and Systems Biology, University of Colorado Denver

Social buffering in a novel social fear conditioning procedure in male and female rats

Social fear is a learned behavior that may contribute to stress-related disorders such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). We have developed an innovative animal model of conditioned social fear in which footshock unconditioned stimuli are paired with social cue conditioned stimuli (CS rats). Here we assess social buffering in our paradigm. Social buffering is a phenomenon observed in social animals, in which an animal better re

covers from a stressor if another animal of the same species (conspecific) is present.